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Posted: 20 Jun 2012 08:33 AM PDT

Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaça, European University Institute, Department of Political and Social Sciences; University of Queensland, School of Political Science and International Studies, has published Interdisciplinarity and Tax Law: The Case of Legal Autopoiesis in Critical Perspectives on Accounting (2012). Here is the abstract.

This paper critically evaluates interdisciplinary research in tax law. The strategy I follow runs at two levels of abstraction.

First, I examine a concrete example of interdisciplinary research in taxation. More precisely, I examine Hikaka and Prebble's (2010) recent paper where, applying Luhmannian autopoietic theory to tax law, they make a series of claims about the productivity of their research strategy as well as the consistency and coherence of Luhmann's interdisciplinary framework. Whereas my analytical and conceptual critique of Hikaka and Prebble's paper stands on its own, it should also be read as revealing the obstacles that lurk behind interdisciplinary research in using such a complex and idiosyncratic theory as Luhmann's autopoietic account of law and society. Accordingly, my analysis shows how autopoietic theory can indeed prove useful for tax and accounting reform as well as to connect tax theory and notions of public interest.

Second, I extrapolate from the analysis of Hikaka and Prebble's paper some general problems that current interdisciplinary tax research needs to give further consideration: (i) how to identify productive research questions and uses of interdisciplinary resources; (ii) the dubious added value of interdisciplinary research, given its tendency to adopt complex theoretical apparatuses in a cursory way with little comparison being made to existing research achievements; and (iii) the risk of using interdisciplinary research as an exercise of confirmatory investigation and/or an exercise of mere translation of one discipline's problems into another discipline's language.

The full text is not available from SSRN.

The Ick Factor

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 08:23 AM PDT

Britta Van Beers, VU University Amsterdam Faculty of Law, has published TV Cannibalism, Body Worlds and Trade in Human Body Parts: Legal-Philosophical Reflections on the Rise of Late Modern Cannibalism, at 4 Amsterdam Law Forum 65 (2012). Here is the abstract.

In December, 2011 two Dutch TV presenters ate pieces of each other's flesh in front of a live television audience. Despite the obscurity of this cannibalistic episode in television history, the matter touches on a series of complex legal and philosophical questions that are discussed in this article, such as the boundaries of criminal law, the legal limits of personal autonomy and law's changing relation to the biological aspects of life. Moreover, through its analysis of the arguments involved, this article offers legal-philosophical reflection on the role of taboos in legal approaches to the human body and derived materials.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Law in Athens

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 08:07 AM PDT

Paul Gowder, University of Iowa College of Law & Stanford University Department of Political Science, has published Equality and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens. Here is the abstract.

In this paper, I defend three claims.

First, contra some classicists and legal historians, classical Athens during the democratic period substantially satisfied the demands of the rule of law (excepting its treatment of women, noncitizens, and slaves). I show that arguments to the contrary mostly represent an unduly narrow conception of what might count as law in Athens, one that inappropriately excludes common-knowledge social customs.

Second, Athenians saw the rule of law as serving the equality of mass and elite, oligarchs and democrats: there was no contradiction (again contra some classicists) between the democratic power of the masses and the rule of law. This equality consisted in two topoi frequently deployed in the Athenian legal and social discourse. First is the respect topos, according to which the laws represent respect for the democratic polis. To disregard them is to reveal one's lack of respect for the polis and one's oligarchic character. Second is the strength topos, according to which the laws are the way that the democratic polis exercises its power: weak members of the masses cannot stand up to strong members of the elite alone, they need the backing of the whole community, and that backing is coordinated through the law; to undermine the law is thereby to undermine the political power of the masses.

Third, this connection between equality and the rule of law explains the most striking fact about Athenian legality, to wit, the otherwise puzzling effectiveness of the amnesty enacted for crimes committed under the Thirty Tyrants. The strength topos explains why the democrats in Athens refrained from avenging themselves against the Thirty despite their opportunity to do so: by doing so, they would have undermined the law, and thereby their own equality. The strength topos led the Athenians to take the internal point of view on the law.

The account of the rule of law deployed in this paper is that developed in my Equality Under the (Rule of) Law, also available on SSRN at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1918742. This paper serves the function, in part, of demonstrating the cross-cultural applicability of the conception of the rule of law developed in that paper.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.