Review Essay

• Koskenniemi, Martti

Abstract

The welcome collection of essays edited by Christian Joerges and Navraj Singh Ghaleigh will hopefully increase the sensitivity of European lawyers to the histories of the legal doctrines that are part of the politics of Europe’s construction. Studies on the role of Fascism or Nazism in legal thought are useful, however, not because they provide criteria for the recognition of proto-Fascist or proto-Nazi tendencies in today’s legal theories but owing to their ability to demonstrate how virtually any legal theory may be bent to support abominable agendas. These histories are most impressive as narratives about particular national experiences, not as providers of a firm foundation for legal theory. The politics of law remains more difficult and perhaps more urgent than simply drawing conclusions from whatever it may be that legal theorists write. What one should think of today’s European (or indeed non-European) legal doctrines must above all depend on what kinds of practices they are used to justify.