Chairs
Selin Esen selin.esen71@gmail.com
Luc Heuschling luc.heuschling@uni.lu
Daniel Bonilla Maldonado dbonilla@uniandes.edu.co

Each legal system is informed by a certain understanding of “how law should reign”. It has its own, more or less multifaceted (thin/thick), historically stable (or unstable) and geographically specific (or overlapping) ideal of “nomocracy”, whatever be its iconic denomination(s): “Rule of law”, “Principe of legality”, “Rechtsstaat”, “État de droit”, “Estado de derecho”, “Socialist Principle of Legality”, “(fazhi)”, “Hôchikokka ”, “Hukuk Devleti”, “Stato di diritto”, « правова държава “, “Oikeusvaltio”, “State/ Staat/État/Estado (defined as a Legal Person)”, “Republic”, “hierarchy of norms”, etc. The term “nomocracy” is used here as a generic expression for the purpose of academic comparison.

Although there exist mountains of scholarly literature in this field from various perspectives, we still miss a comprehensive comparative assessment of this variety. Older or sometimes even recent comparative approaches in the western comparative law literature often focus – which is not entirely surprising – on the “usual suspects”, the big players in the field like USA, Britain, France, and, since the end of 20th century, increasingly (Western-)Germany. Since its accession to the WTO, China has also attracted much of attention from experts in Rule of Law debates. The same applies, although to a lesser degree, to Islamic regimes or to the Rule of Law understanding of the European Union. Yet, the overview remains rather narrow in its geographical extension, a fact which has led to growing criticisms. “Global” or “regional” discussions should be more inclusive and representative. Regarding Asia, Randall Peerenboom explored this new perspective with his remarkable work Asian Discourses of Rule of Law of 2004. In the context of the European Union, some recent comparative studies have moved in the same direction. Yet, there are still lots of blind spots on the map. In comparative law scholarship (in English or in any other language), we still lack for many national jurisdictions an authoritative and complete report about the local nomocracy understanding. We also miss global comparative studies stricto sensu, based on a large number of national studies. In the current textbooks and handbooks on so-called ‘global’, ‘general’ or ‘comparative constitutional law’ – whose goal is to cover more or less the entire world or at least a certain region of the world –, the topic of ‘rule of law/nomocracy’ is either not addressed (there is no chapter, which is not really surprising given the current lack of a consolidated knowledge) or, if it is addressed, the result falls short of what one would ideally expect (there is not one single and coherent chapter on the matter, but a series of several parallel studies; there is one chapter, but its comparative materials are rather poor, being focused on the usual suspects).

The current workshop aims to contribute to filling this gap, by inviting scholars from all over the world to present a comprehensive national report, or narrative, on their local nomocracy understanding. In doing so, they are invited to implement and test the analytical grid (the “Questionnaire”) which so far has been elaborated and discussed in the framework of the IACL Research Group “The Other Rule of Law Traditions in the World”, co-chaired by Selin Esen and Luc Heuschling.