Faculty Member, Law
Lecturer in Law (legal theory), founding member of the working group reflexive modernisation&law
About
Lyana Francot completed her LLM at Maastricht University and her PhD at Utrecht University. Her research interests include social systems theory, complexity, global justice, (legal) ethics.
She is a member of the Working Group Reflexive Modernization and Law. More detailed information about the research project of the Working Group is listed under "Papers".
The Working Group has started up the organization of next year's Critical Legal Conference (in Utrecht).
Current research:
Due to a range of structural developments brought about by the processes of the first and second modernization (such as hyper-individualization, technologization and globalization), contemporary society is now in some respects a world society. Law has facilitated and contributed to these developments but at this point in the process of modernization it has become clear that the contemporary state of affairs in its turn affects law. My research seeks to address several questions. A first question is if a world society is also a hospitable locus for world law. If so, what is world law and is such a global structure not riddled with ‘multiple modernities’ anyway? Is it plausible to state that a ‘thin’ conception of human rights constitute world law? This, in its turn, raises questions about the possibility of conceptualizing global justice. Pivotal in this is the unequal distribution of economic and political power on a global scale and its normative abuse, leading to contemporary global injustice.
Furthermore, the processes mentioned above also affect the rule of law, traditionally a nation state-bound institution that now in its reach is still confined to the nation-state and consequently has a limited impact, certainly in view of the so-called decay of the nation state. Should the rule of law be ‘unchained’ and revamped for a global scope? Is it only then that the rule of law, embedded in a thin conception of human rights, could counterbalance the unequal global distribution of political and economic power?
Related papers (2009/10) : complexity as a source of normativity, autopoeitic justice, multiple modernities and law.
Longterm project (book and/or workshop): law and social theory, with David Nelken, Robert van Krieken, Bald de Vries.
Contact Information
http://www.uu.nl/rechtstheorie
