The Limits of Law and Development: Neoliberalism, Governance and Social Justice

The book examines the well-established field of ‘law and development’ and asks whether the concept of development and discourses on law and development have outlived their usefulness.

The contributors ask whether instead of these amorphous and contested concepts we should focus upon social injustices such as patriarchy, impoverishment, human rights violations, the exploitation of indigenous peoples, and global heating? If we abandoned the idea of development, would we end up adopting another, equally problematic term to replace a concept which, for all its flaws, serves as a commonly understood shorthand? The contributors analyse the links between conventional academic approaches to law and development, neoliberal governance and activism through historical and contemporary case studies.

The book will be of interest to students and scholars of development, international law, international economic law, governance and politics and international relations.

Sam Adelman and Abdul Paliwala are respectively Reader and Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Warwick and have been involved in the internationally renowned programme on International Development Law and Human Rights since its inception in 1981 and in the founding of the global Law and Development Research Network (LDRN).