Helge Dedek (McGill University – Faculty of Law) has posted Where the ‘Real Action’ is: From Comparative Law to Cosmopolitan Jurisprudence (Helge Dedek (ed.), A Cosmopolitan Jurisprudence. Essays in Memory of H. Patrick Glenn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022) 3-25) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
H. Patrick Glenn, Professor of Law and former Director of the Institute of Comparative Law at McGill University, passed away in 2014. This chapter is the introduction to a collection that intends to honor Professor Glenn’s intellectual legacy by engaging critically with his ideas, focusing on the theoretical dimension of his work and especially his vision of a ‘critical cosmopolitan jurisprudence'. To this end, the collection brings together an international group of leading scholars in comparative and transnational law, legal philosophy, legal sociology, and legal history.
This introductory chapter situates Professor Glenn’s work within the context of his trajectory as a scholar of comparative law who came to believe in the potential of a 'comparative' mindset to inform general theories of law. The chapter examines critically the conceptualization of law as ‘tradition,’ one of the central tenets of Glenn's thought, and his postulate of the 'conciliatory' potential of such an approach. Can law indeed be theorized as an organic, self-sustaining yet open discourse, without borders and demarcation lines? Can it be theorized successfully without acknowledging the significance of concepts such as power, force, and violence?