KEYWORDS FOR BERLIN 2007 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LAW AND SOCIETY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

ACCESS TO JUSTICE: access to courts, subsidized legal services, public interest law, pro se defense.

ALTERNATIVE GOVERNANCE AND THE LAW: soft law; new governance; open method of coordination; public-private partnerships; negotiated rule-making; democratic experimentalism; legal pragmatism; stakeholder collaboration.

CITIZENSHIP AND NATION: law and national identity; citizenship; nation-building; citizenship and immigration; cultural identity; social citizenship; welfare state.

CLASS: economic inequality; legal services for the poor; labor; class discrimination; social mobility; class and social theory; class mobilization; Marxian class studies; welfare state.

COLONIALITY/POST-COLONIALITY: legal and extra-legal forms of colonial governance; pluralism and hybridity in colonial and post-colonial relations; legal reconstruction of social relations; different trajectories of colonial governance; domination, accommodation, and resistance.

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW & CONSTITUTIONALISM: constitutional drafting and amendment; constitutional rights; judicial review; federalism; comparative constitutions; constitutional change and social reform.

COURTS AND TRIALS: all types of courts and aspects of adjudication including customary courts; issues relating to legal infrastructure; evidence; expert witnesses; political trials; adversarial or inquisitorial systems; procedure; non-state trials; mixed tribunals; politicizaton of law.

CRIME: sociolegal approaches to the study of crime including theoretical and cultural as well as behavioral perspectives; social conditions affecting crime rates.

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY: conditions of teaching and research: pedagogy; inter- and multi-disciplinarity; legal education outside law schools; academic careers; identity issues; corporatization of higher education.

CULTURE: everyday life; epistemology; hermeneutics; postmodernism; law and humanities; narrative; legal consciousness; reflexive analysis.

DEMOCRACY & STATE THEORY: theories of democracy; democratic institutions; rule of law; legal security; responsive law; liberal theory; democratic and anti-democratic practices; democracy deficit; state theory including socio-legal studies of the administrative state; sovereignty; borders; territoriality; policy making processes; elections; hybrid public/private institutions; state nationalism; nationality; jurisdiction; civil society.

DISPUTES AND NEGOTIATION: alternative dispute resolution; restorative justice; mediation; arbitration; formal and informal dispute resolution.

ECONOMY AND SOCIETY: intersections of law and economic relations; corporate law; property; contracts; micro-economic approaches to law; law and economics; law and economic transformation; corporate governance; commercial arbitration; sociology of markets.

ENVIRONMENT AND LANDSCAPE: Pollution control; natural resources; land use; climate change; environmental ethics; wildlife; nature.

EUROPEAN INTEGRATION: national, transnational, and supranational European institutions and politics.

FAMILY: marriage, kinship, children, co-habitation; divorce/annulment; parents/parenting; new family forms; same-sex marriage.

GENDER AND SEXUALITY: femininities; masculinities; feminist theory and jurisprudence; sexual violence; sexual orientation, homosexuality, bisexuality; gay studies; queer theory, transgender; intersex.

GLOBALIZATION: globalization; global citizenship; global alliances and agreements, impact of globalization on national legal systems; internationalization of sociolegal studies; globalization and social protection; global civil society.

HEALTH AND MEDICINE: including public health; ethics; biotechnology; disease; mental health; substance abuse; injury malpractice.

HUMAN RIGHTS: including domestic and international law pertaining to human rights; theories of human rights; culture and human rights; politics of human rights; universal jurisdiction; crimes against humanity; national and international human rights trials; individual and group rights; economic, social and cultural rights.

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS: United Nations and related organizations; international organizations (e.g. WTO, ASEAN, NAFTA, OECD, OSCE); international financial institutions (e.g. World Bank, IMF); international tribunals (e.g. International Criminal Court, WTO Dispute Settlement Body); international arbitration; NGOs (as an institution).

INDIGENEITY AND FIRST PEOPLES: including comparative, domestic and international issues; customary law.

JUDGES AND JUDGING: judicial careers; judicial selection; judicial independence; discretion; trial judges; appeals judges; judicial training.

JUSTICE: theories of justice; social justice; Marxism; liberalism; economic justice; fairness; distributive justice; procedural justice; restorative and retributive justice.

LABOR: all aspects of socio-legal research relating to work and labor issues, organization, and politics.

LANGUAGE AND DISCOURSE: language and rhetoric; linguistics; legal language; critical approaches legal doctrine as discourse; courtroom language; conversation; bi-and multilingualism; language rights.

LAW AND DEVELOPMENT: role of law in emerging markets; foreign assistance for legal reform; “legal missionaries;” the “rule of law” and economic development.

LAW IN TRANSITIONS TO DEMOCRACY: democratization; transitional justice, truth and reconciliation.

LAY PARTICIPATION IN THE LEGAL SYSTEM: lay assessors; legal consciousness; juries; jury selection; jury deliberation; jury trials; law-making processes.

LEGAL HISTORY: including comparative approaches, historiography, interdisciplinary and theoretically informed approaches to substantive law, legal processes, and legal institutions.

LEGAL MOBILIZATION: individual and collective legal mobilization; law and social movements; litigation and social change; lawyers and mobilization; politics of rights; rights consciousness; use of rights in mobilization.

LEGAL PLURALISM: pluralism within and among legal orders; relations of legal and extra-legal norms or forms of governance; contestations over governance.

LEGAL PROFESSION: including advocacy for social and legal change; professional ethics; professionalism; cause lawyering; government lawyers; cultural histories of legal professions; legal services; prosecutors; legal pluralism; legal education; legal careers.

MEDIA AND LAW: all aspects of law and media as sites of knowledge production, including print and electronic news as well as theater, film, literature; cultural production through media; telecommunications; legal regulation of media; censorship.

METHODOLOGY: socio-legal methodology; quantitative methods; methods of cross-cultural analysis; survey research.

MIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION: immigrant rights and disputing; labor and immigration; forced migration; changing terms of citizen status; cultural defenses of illegal behavior by migrants or immigrants.

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS: NGOs; corporate governance; the voluntary sector; non-profits and corporate social responsibility; the voluntary sector and the welfare state; social entrepreneurships; the role of non-profits in law and economic development.

POLICING, SECURITY & GOVERNANCE: including international and comparative policing studies.

POPULAR CULTURE AND LAW: popular attitudes about law; public legitimacy of legal institutions; consumption and construction of mass mediated images or narratives of law.

PRODUCTION OF LAW: socio-economic bases; role of legal profession; role of judges.

PUNISHMENT: sociolegal approaches to the study of punishment including theoretical perspectives; prisons; sentencing; death penalty; plea bargaining; corrections; alternatives to punishment.

RACE AND ETHNICITY: including critical race theory; multiculturalism; new social movements; ethno-nationalism; whiteness; white privilege.

REGULATION: administrative law; self-regulation; state and non-state agencies; regulatory cultures; corporate governance; licensing; formal and informal regulatory processes.

RELIGION: comparative studies; cosmology; religious freedom; religious law; discrimination; religious institutions and organizations; religious influence on law; Islamic law.

RIGHTS AND IDENTITIES: rights consciousness; everyday workings of law and rights (including women’s rights, gay rights, indigenous rights, minority rights, children's rights, civil rights and/or liberties, voting rights, disability rights, elder rights); rights and resistance; alternatives to rights-based identities.

SECURITY AND TERROR: targeted killings; special courts for security related offences; administrative detentions, terrorism; interrogation methods; use of secret evidence; travel restrictions; preventive deportations; wiretapping; confiscation of suspected terrorist funds; emergency measures.

SOCIAL THEORY AND LAW: social theory, postmodernity, poststructuralism, feminism, critical theory, sociological jurisprudence, critical legal studies.

SOCIO-LEGAL STUDIES: methodologies; relation to legal education; careers; national organization; impact of globalization; transnational studies.

TECHNOLOGY: cyberlaw; surveillance; scientific evidence; intellectual property.

TRANSNATIONALISM: state and non-state actors and networks in transnational contexts (e.g. NGOs, the Basel Committee, International Organization of Securities Commissioners, International Association of Insurance Supervisors); impact of multiple legal orders (e.g. conflicts and extra-jurisdictional effects); transnational legal pluralism; counter-hegemonic social movements.

VICTIMS: victim of crime; victim reporting; victims on trial; victim advocacy.

WAR AND LAW: militarization; terrorism; military alliances; military tribunals; genocide; rules of war; detentions; Warsaw convention; impact of war on social life.

YOUTH AND CHILDHOOD: children’s rights; changing nature of families; child welfare and the law; juvenile criminal justice; children, the law and sexuality; experimenting with novel ways for children to give evidence in judicial proceedings.