Changing Law: Rights, Regulation and Reconciliation

Originally published in 2005. Law has a complex relationship to the phenomenon of change; it is an instrument, a cause and an inhibitor of change. Law has both effected and been affected by extraordinary changes, particularly in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This interdisciplinary collection addresses, from a range of perspectives, the theme of ‘changing law’. The essays cover historical and contemporary issues of social, political and legal change, including human rights, security, law reform, changes in knowledge production in universities and specifically in the legal academy, and the legal oppression/protection of racial minorities. The chapters are grouped into three sections around shared focuses on states, institutions and justice, and collectively address common concerns of rights, regulation and reconciliation: key legal problematics of the early twenty-first century.