Firming up Soft Law
Professor Sally Engle Merry of the Department of Anthropology, New York University, visited The Dickson Poon School of Law on 31 January 2014.
The visit was part of The Dickson Poon School of Law Transnational Speaker Series established by Dean Caron last year and was overseen by Dr Nicola Palmer and Professor Cindy Skach.
The centre piece of the visit was a seminar with staff, students, and members of the public in a packed Somerset House East Wing boardroom. Firming Up Soft Law: The Impact of Indicators on Transnational Human Rights Legal Orders addressed the question of how the use of quantitative indicators affects the soft law of global governance in the field of human rights.
Professor Merry’s presentation used the example of human trafficking and modern slavery to explore the prospects for, and pitfalls of, the use of indicators in human rights advocacy work. The seminar drew on her work in collaboration with Professor Greg Shaffer – another former guest of the Transnational Law Speaker Series.
Dean Caron said, 'Sally Engle Merry is one of the leading thinkers in debates on law and society after globalisation. Her visit at King’s demonstrates to our students the value of different disciplinary approaches to the study of transnational law. Professor Merry’s work reminds us that in the global world it is not enough to master legal doctrine. We must also explore further – bringing new perspectives to legal practice, government, and civil society, so that we can better understand the law in action.'
Sally Engle Merry is Professor of Anthropology, Law and Society at New York University and a former President of the American Ethnological Society.
About the Transnational Law Speaker Series
The Transnational Speaker Series at The Dickson Poon School of Law sees the School host leading thinkers and practitioners from across the world to discuss law under globalisation.
Our guests this year have included thinkers such as Professors Sally Engle Merry, Greg Shaffer, and Peer Zumbansen, Judge Joan E. Donoghue of the International Court of Justice, and William Neukom, President and CEO of the World Justice Project.
The conversations cover a wide range of topics in law, legal practice, and legal education. In conversation with the Dean, Professor David Caron, and other colleagues, our guests have offered their ideas on the rule of law, the role of states, and the duties of lawyers today.
In the words of one guest, drawing on the great jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, the series asks how we connection our subject "with the universe and catch an echo of the infinite, a glimpse of its unfathomable process, a hint of the universal law". The conversation continues.
See forthcoming events from The Dickson Poon School of Law.