Legal teaching and the reconceptualizing of the state: discussing global law programs

Abstract

Globalization has made traditional readings of the State deeply problematical. The vanishing of old frontiers and the building of new walls, which characterize the so-called new global order, have become the object of heated political and theoretical debates. (CERNY, 1999; CHEVALIER, 2003; FUKUYAMA, 2004; SUPIOT, 2015). Law schools are a key player in this controversy as they represent the prime loci where competing ways for reconceptualizing the State vie for primacy. This paper discusses the connections between recent attempts to renew legal education to form global lawyers and the building of new theoretical renderings of the State. It does so by examining the rise of Global Law Programs in universities around the world and the challenges their curriculum and teaching methodologies pose to established representations of the State.