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44Abulfaz Guseinov,
summary.
Keywords:
SOME TRENDS iN DEVELOPMENTS iN THE FiELD OF LAW iN POST-iNDUSTRiAL SOCiETiES
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14420/en.2013.4.5 web-site: http://bar-association.ru/
Doctor of Legal Sciences, Associate Professor, Faculty of the Theory and History of State and Law, State University of Baku.
The author analyses trends in developments in the field of law in post-industrial societies, such as the unification of the law based on a global phenomenon of acquiring values rooted in other cultures, known as acculturation, the standardisation of legal life across society, and legal integration. This last example means that an intrastate legal framework enters into an alliance with international legal frameworks. The article emphasises that a post-industrial future of the law requires us to reconsider some concepts, to specify notions, and to solve new problems such as, for example, that of an obligatory narrowing of different legal frameworks. It also highlights the need to consider the law with due account for changing reality and the trends of the future, to expand the scope of problems to be researched, and to develop an adequate methodology. law of the post-industrial society, standardisation of the law, legal acculturation, pluralistic law, unification of the law.
One of the major trends in the evolution of the law in post-industrial societies is its unification, which dates back to the twentieth century. A modern understanding of legal acculturation in the context of globalisation also contributes to the unification of the law. What we face is adoption, i.e. elements of a well-developed legal framework are transferred into a less sophisticated framework, and thus the follow-up process can be considered as reintegration. At this time, legal acculturation is acquiring a global dimension, which means that legal developments in an individual country obey internationally active principles of the evolution of the law. There are several directions for this interaction, namely the reception of ideas, notions, juridical constructions, institutions, etc.1
Such acculturation leads to legal unification. For example, the dominant streams of economic exchanges are ruled by international trade conventions and international norms. Accordingly, to meet their requirements it is necessary to apply unified laws, and to standardize law-making and law enforcement in the corresponding areas of legal life in these countries.
However, the process also implies that certain legal complexities appear; these are caused by the simultaneous existence of unified norms and national
1 Ivanets G.I., Chervonyuk V.I. Globalizatsija, gosudarstvo, pravo [Globalisation, State, Law] // Gosu-darstvo i pravo. 2003. No. 8. p. 91.
norms. The process also results in the manifestation of some contradictions attributable to the traditional model for the perception of the nature of the national law, and, to a certain degree, to a persistence in the interpretation and understanding of the national law.
Standardisation in legal life is also taking place. New standards apply in various spheres of legal regulation. First of all there are international legal standards related to individual rights and freedoms, and then there are standards that determine the functioning of mechanisms in the fields of justice, entrepreneurial business, finance, etc.1 Along with this, legal integration is taking place. One aspect of legal integration is reflected in the fact that various legal frameworks start to interrelate, so that we observe complex and manifold two-way relationships between state and regional, domestic and regional, and domestic and international legal frameworks. Amendments or transformations to one of the legal frameworks result in the alteration or transformation of those legal frameworks with which it is associated. Another aspect of legal integration is manifest in the creation of “global” or “world” law2. Legal integration takes one of the leading positions in the infrastructure of incorporating processes.
Juridical science recognises that a post-industrial future of the law requires us to reconsider concepts, specify notions, and solve new problems. This applies, for example, to the sources of law. Due to globalisation, we need and are obliged to enable a rapprochement between different legal frameworks, and this in its turn will require a narrowing of the sources of law and a search for new regulators for social relations.
There are also essential changes in the relationship between public and private law. The old approach, which consisted of a clean-cut separation of public and private law, also proves to be non-viable in the context of globalisation. “In the long run globalisation, being a powerful tool for establishing far and wide principles of integration, universality and shifting, is able to turn around the nature of the private in society. In anticipation of this complete change academic efforts are made to develop the concept of 'public order', which will allow us in years to come to obviate the conceptual necessity of separating private and public law”3.
Another vital question raised by globalisation is about the way state sovereignty is defined and perceived. Previously, the dominant belief was that the further we move towards globalisation and a world that is integrated over the whole planet, the less sovereignty states will have. Now we see more and more plainly the need to retain, secure and protect our own identity through maintaining and strengthening the institutions of state sovereignty4.
1 Lukjanova E.G. Osnovnyje tendentsii razvitija rossiiskogo prava v uslovijakh globalizatsii [Primary Development Trends of the Russian Law in the Globalisation Context] // Gosudarstvo i pravo. 2004. No. 7. p. 84.
2 An Vey. Globalizatsija i pravo. Vozdeistvije sovremennoi kitaiskoi pravovoi filosofii na razvitije ob-shchestva v Kitaje [Globalisation and Law. Influence of Modern Chinese Legal Philosophy on the Development of Society in China] // Voprosy filosofii. 2005. No. 2. p. 167.
3 Maltsev G.V. Chastnoje i publichnoje pravo // Grazhdanskoje i torgovoje pravo zarubezhnykh stran. Moscow, 2004. p. 758. [Private and Public Law // Civil and Commercial Law of Foreign Countries.]
4 Pravovaja sistema Rossii v uslovijakh globalizatsii i regionalnoi integratsii (Obzor materialov kruglogo stola) [Legal System of Russia in the Context of Globalisation and Region Integration (Survey of Materials of the Round Table)] // Gosudarstvo i pravo 2004. No. 11. p. 102.
All over the world we can observe the creation and development of international rules that are considered to be the worldwide standards for the right or wrong behaviour of states and institutions; these rules (as tools) are aimed at creating standards in international law and building up mechanisms that enable adherence to these standards. As part of this process we can also witness the establishment of a number of international organisations, including those attached to the UN, and regional associations of states, which was predetermined by geopolitical and socio-cultural factors.
In the global legal system of post-industrial societies that is being formed, there appear to be two more important components, the legal nature of which stirs up a number of disputes. I refer to the so-called transnational law and supranational law. The essence of transnational law is that parties in international relationships generate standards of behaviour on their own that exist outside the framework of either domestic or international law. Supranational law in its turn manifests itself when states are called to obey certain norms that were created or that apply to them without their consent1.
One of the trends in making decisions in the global post-industrial world is a shift from unilateral acts to bilateral acts, and from bilateral acts to plurilateral and supranational acts. This happens more and more often, and can also be described as a change from “soft” law to “hard” law, i.e. from the primacy of domestic law in many cases to the superiority of international law. Thereby, according to G.V. Maltsev, one may state that in the context of globalisation we can see the establishment of “the global legal system, in which the international law and national legal systems turn into multilevel 'branches' and institutions, whereas the social system of human civilization as a whole appears to be subject to regulation. Among other things it shows that the law, being extracted from the context of the socio-normative culture, starts playing an unusual role in modern processes. The legal situation in the world where research and technology dominate is unprecedented regarding its complexity, its rate of change and the uncertainty of its future development”2.
It is widely recognised that globalisation in the state and legal context suggests that new rules should be generated and that sovereign states should be subject to these new rules. International and transnational associations such as the EU, the IMF, the Southern Common Market MERCOSUR and other interstate organisations create the basis for globalisation, and dictate rules of conduct for sovereign states.
It should be pointed out that a wider social basis, one that takes into account new challenges, will serve as the foundation for the law in the post-industrial future. In order to solve the new problems, some legal forms should be applied, which in turn will suggest that corresponding legal mechanisms should be generated. Creating new legal mechanisms proves to be necessary because of the very nature of the situation, with its implicit complex interaction between the interests of the participants, which will differ fundamentally from the traditional interactions between interests.
Owing to the rapid developments in information technology and the
2 Ibid. p. 107.
3 bid. p. 108.
appearance of new realities, we may expect that legal regulation in the fields of information and electronic media will be growing. Global informational processes and systems have a significant effect on the legal and political systems of most countries. It is now evident that global informational processes are to be subject to legal regulation. According to O.A. Stepanov, if we do not analyse the trends in the developments in the high technology field today, tomorrow we will face the commencement of irreversible destructive changes connected with the collapse of society in general1. For this reason, one of the objectives that legal science must deal with at the present time is building up the legal basis for technological development in the sphere of information and electronics.
Globalisation brings the risk that the gap between positivism and idealism will grow wider and wider, in proportion to the extent of standardisation and globalisation among political and legal institutions. According to H.J. Berman, the law becomes more and more pragmatic and political2. Fast developments in setting standards will also result in the said gap becoming deeper and wider. Under these conditions it would be appropriate to combine setting standards with natural legal concepts. On the other hand, “the juridical doctrine in the twenty-first century should be based on the paradigm of the modern normative understanding of the law”3.
One more tendency in developments in the law, which could easily have been predicted and which has already shown itself, is pluralisation. The Chinese researcher An Vej puts emphasis on the fact that the pluralisation of global legal entities led to the pluralisation of subjects of law, the pluralisation of subjects of law led in its turn to the pluralisation of values that are subject to the law, and the pluralisation of values that are subject to the law is the cause of conflicts that emerge between the values that are subject to the law. Discrepancy between legal values can only be resolved when pluralism of legal values receives public attention4.
Prognostic activities, i.e. making forecasts, will become one of the significant trends in legal science in the future. Thus, legal systems will be able to adapt effectively to new terms, and to use adequate legal regulation mechanisms and tools in various spheres. In order to develop the legal groundwork for globalisation processes, legal science should be anticipatory, not merely opportune. According to I.V. Zakomornyi, the potential of scientific prediction serves as the basis for state policy in general and legal policy in particular. A forecast, including a juridical one,
1 Stepanov O.A. Perspektivy pravovogo regulirovanija otnoshenij v uslovijakh razvitija vysokikh tekh-nologij /[Perspectives of the Legal Regulation of Relationships in the Context of Developing High Technologies] / Gosudarstvo i pravo 2003. No. 1. p. 87.
2 See: Berman H.J. Zapadnaja traditsija prava: epokha reformirovanija [Western Tradition in the Law: the Formation Epoch] Moscow: MGU; Norma, 1998. P. 13.
3 Baitin M.I. Vserossijskaja nauchno-teoreticheskaja konferentsija “Ponimanije prava”, posvjashch-jonnaja 75-letju so dnja rozhdenija professora A.B. Vengerov (1928-1998) [All-Russian Scientific and Academic Conference “Apprehension of the Law”, devoted to the 75th anniversary of Professor A.B. Vengerov (1928-1998)] // Gosudarstvo i pravo. 2003. No. 8. p. 105.
4 An Vej, footnote 3 above, p. 168.
should therefore specify several possible options1. Obviously, juridical forecasting will be effected at the junction of different methods and sciences, with the latter growing new branches.
The challenges of the time can be summarised as follows: legal science, which used to deal predominantly with issues that stay within the framework of individual national legal systems, is now required to consider the law with regard to an ever-changing reality and the trends of the future, to widen the scope of problems under study and to create an adequate methodology.
References
1. An Vey. Globalizatsija i pravo. Vozdeistvije sovremennoi kitaiskoi pravovoi filosofii na razvitije obshchestva v Kitaje [Globalisation and Law. Influence of Modern Chinese Legal Philosophy on the Development of Society in China] // Voprosy filosofii. 2005. No. 2.
2. Baitin M.I. Vserossijskaja nauchno-teoreticheskaja konferentsija “Ponimanije prava”, posvjashchjonnaja 75-letju so dnja rozhdenija professora A.B. Vengerova (19281998) [All-Russian Scientific and Academic Conference “Apprehension of the Law”, devoted to the 75th anniversary of Professor A.B. Vengerov (1928-1998)] // Gosudarstvo i pravo. 2003. No. 8.
3. Berman H.J. Zapadnaja traditsija prava: epokha reformirovanija [Western Tradition in the Law: the Formation Epoch] Moscow: MGU; Norma, 1998.
4. Zakomornyj I.V. Juridicheskoje prognozirovanije v teorii prava // Sbornik statei aspirantov i stazherov Instituta gosudarstva i prava RAN [Juristic Forecasting in Theory of Law // Collected Works of Postgraduates and Trainees of the Institute of State and Law attached to the Russian Academy of Sciences] / Supervising editor Ju.L. Shulzhenko. Moscow, 2004.
5. Ivanets G.I., Chervonyuk V.I. Globalizatsija, gosudarstvo, pravo [Globalisation, State, Law] // Gosudarstvo i pravo. 2003. No. 8.
6. Lukjanova E.G. Osnovnyje tendentsii razvitija rossiiskogo prava v uslovijakh globalizatsii [Primary Development Trends of Russian Law in the Context of Globalisation] // Gosudarstvo i pravo. 2004. No. 7.
7. Maltsev G.V. Chastnoje i publichnoje pravo [Private and Public Law] // Grazhdanskoje i torgovoje pravo zarubezhnykh stran [Civil and Commercial Law of Foreign Countries]. Moscow, 2004.
8. Pravovaja sistema Rossii v uslovijakh globalizatsii i regionalnoi integratsii (Obzor materialov kruglogo stola) [Legal System of Russia in the Context of Globalisation and Region Integration (Survey of Materials of the Round Table) // Gosudarstvo i pravo 2004. No. 11.
9. Stepanov O.A. Perspektivy pravovogo regulirovanija otnoshenij v uslovijakh razvitija vysokikh tekhnologij [Perspectives of the Legal Regulation of Relationships in the Context of Developing High Technologies] // Gosudarstvo i pravo 2003. No. 1.
1 Zakomornyi. I.V. Juridicheskoje prognozirovanije v teorii prava // Sbornik statei aspirantov i stazherov Instituta gosudarstva i prava RAN / Supervising editor Ju.L. Shulzhenko. Moscow, 2004. [Juristic Forecasting in Theory of Law // Collected Works of Postgraduates and Trainees of the Institute of State and Law attached to the Russian Academy of Sciences].
