Action Between the Legal and the Illegal: A-Legality as a Political

Abstract

This article develops a theory of ‘a-legal space’ and its utilization as a political–legal strategy. A-legal space refers to initiatives which adopt a quasi-legal or quasi-institutional form, yet with no official legal basis; a disputed legal basis; or exceeding their recognized legal basis. Examples include unauthorized referenda such as the Catalan independence referendum which took place in 2017 and, on a local level, across Catalonia in 2009–2011; peoples’ tribunals such as the World Tribunal on Iraq, where the US and UK governments were tried for war crimes; and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy where aboriginal activists protesting for land rights erected tents outside the Australian Parliament and declared it an embassy. The use of a-legal space is an under-studied and untheorized tactic employed with increasing regularity by social movement, civil society, and sometimes, state and substate actors. The article builds on the work of political theorist Marta Harnecker, who coined the term ‘a-legal space’, through situating it within the existing philosophical conception of a-legality developed by critical legal scholar Hans Lindahl (2013). The aim is to contribute to an understanding of why citizens undertake these initiatives and how they can have a political impact.

Keywords

A-legal space a-legality citizens’ debt audits peoples’ tribunals semi-legality unofficial referenda

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Baiget

(2009) Un juzgado prohíbe a Arenys de Munt hacer un referéndum sobre la independencia de Cataluña. El Confidencial [In Spanish]. Available at: http://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2009-09-09/un-juzgado-prohibe-a-arenys-de-munt-hacer-un-referendum-sobre-la-independencia-de-cataluna_483089/ (accessed 1 August 2014).

BBC (2017) Venezuela: Big show of support for opposition. BBC News. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-40624313 (accessed 20 November 2017).

Beigbeder

(1999) Judging War Criminals: The Politics of International Justice. London: Macmillan.

Benjamin

(2009) The Honduran coup: The specter of democracy, and of the past. NACLA Report on the Americas 45(2): 4–5.

Blaser

(1992) How to advance human rights without really trying: An analysis of nongovernmental tribunals. Human Rights Quarterly 14(3): 339–370.

Booth

Forero

(2009) Honduran military sends president into exile; supportive congress names successor. The Wall Street Journal. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/28/AR2009062800635.html (accessed 20 November 2017).

Borowiak

(2008) The world tribunal on Iraq: Citizens’ tribunals and the struggle for accountability. New Political Science 30(2): 161–186.

Byrnes

(2012) Claiming International Law for the People: The Persistence and Role of Civil Society Tribunals in the Modern World. Public Lecture, October 8, Switzerland: University of Zurich.

Cameron

(2009) Latin America’s left turns: Beyond good and bad. Third World Quarterly 30(2): 331–348.

10.

Carrillo

(2010) La quijotada de la séptima papeleta – Revista Cambio, N°. 418 – 21/06/01 [In Spanish]. Available at: https://fundacionseptimapapeleta.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/la-quijotada-de-la-septima-papeleta-revista-cambio-n%C2%BA-418-210601/ (accessed 20 November 2017).

11.

Cassel

(2009) Honduras: Coup d’Etat in constitutional clothing? The American Society of International Law Insight 13(9). Available at: http://www.nd.edu/∼ndlaw/news/ASIL.pdf (accessed 20 November 2017).

12.

Chinkin

(2006) People’s tribunals: Legitimate or rough justice. Windsor YB Access Just 24(2): 201–220.

13.

CNN (2009) Honduras president challenges government over referendum. CNN. Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/25/honduras.general/index.html (accessed 17 January 2014).

14.

Cunha Filho

Coelho

Flores

FIP

(2013) A right-to-left policy switch? An analysis of the Honduran case under Manuel Zelaya. International Political Science Review 34(5): 519–542.

15.

Dearden

(2017) Catalan independence referendum illegal under Spanish constitution, European commission confirms. The Independent. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/catalan-independence-referendum-not-legal-spanish-constitution-european-commission-juncker-spain-law-a7978386.html (accessed 26 November 2017).

16.

Duffett

(1968) Against the Crime of Silence: Proceedings of the Russell International War Crimes Tribunal, Stockholm, Copenhagen. Nottingham: Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.

17.

Eolas

(2009) Autoréduction, ou extorsion? In: Journal d’un Avocat [In French]. Available at: http://www.maitre-eolas.fr/post/2009/01/05/1263-autoreduction-ou-extorsion (accessed 20 October 2016).

18.

Ewick

Silbey

(1998) The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

19.

Faiola

(2008) Calling foreign debt ‘immoral’, leader allows Ecuador to default. The Wall Street Journal. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/12/AR2008121204105.html (accessed 13 April 2014).

20.

Harnecker

(2007) Rebuilding the Left. London: Zed Books.

21.

Hart

HLA

(2012) The Concept of Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

22.

High Pay Commission (2011) Cheques With Balances: Why Tackling High Pay is in the National Interest. Final report of the High Pay Commission. Available at: http://highpaycentre.org/files/Cheques_with_Balances.pdf (accessed 20 November 2017).

23.

Hughes

(2017) A-Legal Space as a Political Strategy: An Analysis of Constitutive Power and Democracy Based on Case Studies From Latin America. PhD Thesis, Keele University, UK.

24.

Hughes

(Forthcoming) The Colombian ‘seventh ballot’, the Honduran ‘fourth ballot box’, and the transformative potential of constituent power: A revised approach to new Latin American constitutionalism. Latin American Perspectives.

25.

ICAN (2013) About ICAN. Available at: http://www.citizen-audit.net/about-ican/ (accessed 15 April 2014).

26.

Kelsen

(2005) Pure Theory of Law. New Jersey: The Lawbook Exchange.

27.

Klinghoffer

(2002) International Citizens’ Tribunals: Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights. London: Macmillan.

28.

Kubal

(2013) Conceptualizing semi-legality in migration research. Law & Society Review 47(3): 555–587.

29.

Lalander

(2010) The impeachment of Carlos Andrés Pérez and the collapse of Venezuelan Partyarchy. In: Llanos

Marsteintredet

(eds) Presidential Breakdowns in Latin America: Causes and Outcomes of Executive Instability in Developing Democracies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.129–145.

30.

Lambeth Peoples’ Audit (2017) Lambeth Peoples’ Audit 2015/16. London: Lambeth Peoples’ Audit. Available at: http://www.thepeoplesaudit.info/ (accessed 20 January 2018).

31.

Lazarus-Black

Hirsch

(1994) Contested States: Law, Hegemony and Resistance. London: Routledge.

32.

Lenin

(1964) The dual power. In: Lenin Collected Works. Vol. 24. Moscow: Progress Publishers, pp. 38–41.

33.

Lindahl

(2013) Fault Lines of Globalization: Legal Order and the Politics of A-legality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

34.

Llanos

Marsteintredet

(2010) The breakdown of Zelaya’s presidency: Honduras in comparative perspective. In: Llanos

Marsteintredet

(eds) Presidential Breakdowns in Latin America: Causes and Outcomes of Executive Instability in Developing Democracies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.229–237.

35.

Llewellyn

(1934) The constitution as an institution. Columbia Law Review 34(1): 1–40.

36.

Merry

(1995) Resistance and the cultural power of law. Law & Society Review 29: 11–26.

37.

Merry

(1996) Legal vernacularization and ka ho’okolokolonui kanaka maoli [In Hawaiian], the people’s international tribunal, Hawai’i 1993. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 19(1): 67–82.

38.

Morillo

(1992) La Voluntad Popular es que se Vaya CAP. Ultimás Noticias [In Spanish], 13 June, 20.

39.

Muldoon

Schaap

(2012) Aboriginal sovereignty and the politics of reconciliation: The constituent power of the aboriginal embassy in Australia. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30(3): 534–550.

40.

Muñoz

Guinjoan

(2013) Accounting for internal variation in nationalist mobilization: Unofficial referendums for independence in Catalonia (2009–2011). Nations and Nationalism 19(1): 44–67.

41.

Nayar

(2001) A people’s tribunal against the crime of silence? – The politics of judgement and an agenda for people’s law. Law, Social Justice & Global Development Journal (LGD) 2. Available at: https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/lgd/2001_2/nayar/ (accessed 20 November 2017).

42.

Nayar

(2003) Thinking the ‘impossible’: People’s law. Law, Social Justice & Global Development Journal (LGD) 1. Available at: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/lgd/2003_1/nayar2/ (accessed 20 November 2017).

43.

Nayar

(2006) Taking empire seriously: Empire’s law, peoples’ law and the world tribunal on Iraq. In: Bartholomew

(ed) Empire’s Law: The American Imperial Project and the ‘War to Remake the World’. London: Pluto Press, pp. 313–339.

44.

Otto

(2017) Impunity in a different register: People’s tribunals and questions of judgement, law and responsibility. In: Davis

Engle

Miller

(eds) Anti-Impunity and the Human Rights Agenda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 291–328.

45.

Philipson

(2014) Tony Blair: Bar worker attempts citizen’s arrest on former PM at trendy tramshed restaurant. The Telegraph. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10585280/Tony-Blair-bar-worker-attempts-citizens-arrest-on-former-PM-at-trendy-Tramshed-restaurant.html. (accessed 14 April 2018).

46.

Police Monitoring Unit (1985) What is the Police Monitoring Committee and Unit? Police Watch 1. Manchester: Manchester City Council.

47.

Prevost

Vanden

Oliva Campos

(2012) Social Movements and Leftist Governments in Latin America: Confrontation or Co-option? London: Zed Books.

48.

Pryce

(2015) St. Kitts joins Caribbean fight for reparations. Caribbean Life News. Available at: http://www.caribbeanlifenews.com/stories/2015/10/2015-10-23-vkp-inside-life-cl.html (accessed 29 November 2015).

49.

PWCCC (2010) World people’s conference on climate change and the rights of mother earth. Building the people’s world movement for mother earth. Available at: https://pwccc.wordpress.com (accessed 3 March 2012).

50.

Robinson

(1994) The aboriginal embassy: An account of the protests of 1972. Aboriginal History 18: 49–63.

51.

Saguy

Stuart

(2008) Culture and law: Beyond a paradigm of cause and effect. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 619(1): 149–164.

52.

Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign (2013) An Inquiry into the Proposals to Close Lewisham Hospital A&E, Maternity and Children’s Services [online]. London: Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign. Available at: http://www.savelewishamhospital.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Lewisham-Commission-reportb.pdf (accessed 13 August 2014).

53.

Schaap

(2008) Aboriginal sovereignty and the democratic paradox. In: Lloyd

Little

(eds) The Politics of Radical Democracy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 52–72.

54.

Schaap

(2009) The absurd proposition of aboriginal sovereignty. In: Schaap

(ed) Law and Agonistic Politics. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 209–223.

55.

Seel

(1997) Strategies of resistance at the Pollok free state road protest camp. Environmental Politics 6(4): 108–139.

56.

Smart

(1989) Feminism and the Power of Law. London: Routledge.

57.

Terrell

(2005) Unofficial accountability: A proposal for the permanent women’s tribunal on sexual violence in armed conflict. Texas Journal of Women and the Law 15: 107–131.

58.

Transnational Institute (2008) Permanent peoples tribunal: Session on neoliberal policies and European transnationals in Latin America and the Caribbean. Available at: https://www.tni.org/en/archives/act/18545 (accessed 1 April 2013).

59.

Van Cott

(2000) The Friendly Liquidation of the Past: The Politics of Diversity in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Action Between the Legal and the Illegal: A-Legality as a Political–Legal Strategy

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References