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Relationism: Legal Theory for a Relational Society

1983; University of Chicago Law School; Volume: 50; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1599503

1939-859X

Gidon Gottlieb,

Legal principles and applications

Any theory of law that by virtue of its emphasis on law courts and on enforceable remedies focuses mainly on the individual, the State, regulation, and the discrete transactions of the marketplace, is woefully incomplete. It fails to address the broad realm of interaction between the colossal institutions and organizations that dominate advanced societies, and it neglects the way in which law functions as law among them. One common theme underlies the intense dissatisfaction with the formal legal ordering of industrial relations, ongoing contracts, and international law: on account of the character of relations between the parties, their conduct is far removed from the demands of the formal legal order. This dissatisfaction can be found, for example, in the work of an English royal commission on industrial relations.' It was also reflected in the work of the Uniform Commercial Code Commission that adapted the law of contracts to the practices and needs of commerce,2 and it is expressed today in the perceived inadequacy of legal remedies for breaches of sovereign loan agreements.8 Scholars have voiced their dissatisfaction. Clyde Summers, for example, observed that the law of contracts so far as it consists of specific legal rules, has little relevance for collective agreements,4 and Ian Macneil has criticized the transactional bias of classical contract law. This critique is so persistent and uniform that I have been led to question some familiar and powerful views about legal ordering. It is my position that the much lamented inadequacies in the law of industrial relations, in the law of contracts, and in international law