Polycentric law is a theoretical legal structure in which "providers" of

legal system A legal system is a set of legal norms and institutions and processes by which those norms are applied, often within a particular jurisdiction or community. It may also be referred to as a legal order. The comparative study of legal systems is th ...

s compete or overlap in a given

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' and 'speech' or 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, the concept of jurisdiction applies at multiple level ...

, as opposed to monopolistic

statutory law A statute is a law or formal written enactment of a legislature. Statutes typically declare, command or prohibit something. Statutes are distinguished from court law and unwritten law (also known as common law) in that they are the expressed wi ...

according to which there is a sole provider of law for each jurisdiction.

Devolution Devolution is the statutory delegation of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to govern at a subnational level, such as a regional or local level. It is a form of administrative decentralization. Devolved territori ...

of this monopoly occurs by the principle of jurisprudence in which they

rule according to higher law The rule according to a higher law is a philosophical concept that no law may be enforced by the government unless it conforms with certain universal principles (written or unwritten) of fairness, morality, and justice. Thus, ''the rule accordin ...

Overview

Tom W. Bell, former director of telecommunications and technology studies at

Cato Institute The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch ...

, now a professor of law at Chapman University School of Law in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, wrote "Polycentric Law", published by the Institute for Humane Studies, when he was a law student at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

. In it he notes that others use phrases such as "non-monopolistic law" to describe these polycentric alternatives.Tom W. Bell
Polycentric Law
Institute for Humane Studies Review, Volume 7, Number 1 Winter 1991/92. He outlines traditional customary law (also known as consuetudinary law) before the creation of states, including as described by Friedrich A. Hayek, Bruce L. Benson, and David D. Friedman. He mentions specifically the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

customary law, but also church law, guild law, and merchant law as examples of what he believes is polycentric law. He states that customary and statutory law have co-existed through history, as when

Roman law Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. Roman law also den ...

applied to Romans throughout the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

, but indigenous legal systems were permitted for non-Romans. In "Polycentric Law in the New Millennium," which won first place in the Mont Pelerin Society's 1998 Friedrich A. Hayek Fellowship competition, Bell predicts three areas where polycentric law might develop: alternative dispute resolution, private communities, and the Internet. The

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

(

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

) funded a "Polycentric Law" research project from 1992 to 1995, led by professor Lars D. Eriksson. Its goal was to demonstrate "the inadequacy of current legal paradigms by mapping the indeterminacies of both the modern law and the modern legal theory. It also addressed the possibility of legal and ethical alternativies to the modern legal theories" and "provided openings to polycentric legal theories both by deconstructing the idea of unity in law and re-constructing legal and ethical differences". The project hosted two international conferences. In 1998 the book ''Polycentricity: The Multiple Scenes of Law'', edited by Ari Hirvonen, collected essays written by scholars involved with the project. Professor Randy Barnett, who originally wrote about "non-monopolistic" law, later used the phrase "polycentric legal order". He explains what he sees as advantages of such a system in his book ''The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law.'' Bruce L. Benson also uses the phrase, writing in a Cato Institute publication in 2007: "A customary system of polycentric law would appear to be much more likely to generate efficient sized jurisdictions for the various communities involved—perhaps many smaller than most nations, with others encompassing many of today’s political jurisdictions (e.g., as international commercial law does today)." John K. Palchak and Stanley T. Leung in "No State Required? A Critical Review of the Polycentric Legal Order," criticize the concept of polycentric law. Legal scholar Gary Chartier in "Anarchy and Legal Order" elaborates and defends the idea of law without the state. It proposes an understanding of how law enforcement in a

stateless society A stateless society is a society that is not governed by a state. In stateless societies, there is little concentration of authority. Most positions of authority that do exist are very limited in power, and they are generally not perman ...

could be legitimate and what the optimal substance of law without the state might be, he suggests ways in which a stateless legal order could foster the growth of a culture of freedom, and situates the project it elaborates in relation to leftist,

anti-capitalist Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and Political movement, movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists seek to combat the worst effects of capitalism and to eventually replace capitalism ...

, and

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

traditions.

References

External links

* Adam Chacksfield,
Polycentric Law and the Minimal State: The Case of Air Pollution
, Libertarian Alliance, ''Political Notes'' 76, 1993. * Roderick T. Long,
The Nature of Law
, ''Formulations'', published by Free Nation Foundation, Spring 1994. {{Authority control Anarchist theory Libertarian theory Pluralism (philosophy) Philosophy of law

Overview

See also

References

External links