Description
Current developments in legal research show that many legal scholars go beyond the traditional boundaries of doctrinal law, i.e. beyond studying and interpreting legal texts. The doctrinal core of legal scholarship benefits from connecting it to contexts and other disciplines. But how should we approach such contextual and interdisciplinary legal research?In this lecture, I argue that a combination of three types of perspective in legal methodology is necessary to engage in meaningful contextual legal research: theoretical, empirical and doctrinal perspectives. First, I discuss the core approaches of doctrinal, theoretical and empirical research in law and show where they have blind spots. I then argue how the combination of these perspectives can amount to triangulation of perspectives: moving beyond merely adding new elements to a critical engagement with the other’s research results. Using my own research topic of the rule of law as an example, I discuss the promises and difficulties of such triangulation. Finally, I relate the need for such a pluralistic approach to the research goal of contributing to law reform.
| Period | 2 Nov 2022 |
|---|---|
| Held at | Umeå University, Sweden |
| Degree of Recognition | International |