Global legal pluralism and the temporality of soft law

Abstract

The global legal field is constituted by a wide array of laws, guidelines, recommendations, practices, and standards which are enforced in multiple, overlapping, and sometimes inconsistent ways. Moreover, it is constantly changing as some standards become solidified into rules that have increasingly strong normative and institutional support, while others fall into disuse. Understanding the global legal order requires attending to its temporality. This article emphasizes the temporality of the global legal order by tracing the creation of an index to measure economic and human development. I use the example of Human Development Index to show how, over time, a radical theory can become a widely accepted perspective that influences policy-makers and publics. The index began from a general theory of human development and was translated into a system of ranking that gradually became authoritative for policy-makers and publics.

Keywords:

• global legal pluralism
• soft law
• human development
• human rights
• temporality

Notes

1. I am grateful to Jessica Shimmin for her excellent work on this media summary and the analysis presented here.

2. The number of countries measured changes over time depending on the number for which adequate statistical information is available.

Additional information

Funding

This research was generously supported by the National Science Foundation Law and Social Sciences Program and Science, Technology, and Society Program [grant number #SES-0921368].