Legal pluralism in practice.

• Author: Merry, Sally Engle
• Position: McGill Convocation Address 2013

EDITOR'S NOTE

Professor Sally Engle Merry was awarded an Honourary Doctor of Laws at the McGill Faculty of Law's 2013 convocation ceremony. A leading American legal anthropologist, she reminds us in her graduation address of the importance of legal pluralist framework--not only to the study of law, but also to a general understanding of human interaction. She demonstrates the need for jurists to be alert to the effects of overlapping legal systems using examples of her varied experiences studying these systems' multidimensional roles in society--in colonial Hawai'i, the urban United States, and East and Southeast Asia, among other locations-and her analyses of the manner in which different levels of law interact to ensure the protection of human rights.

Moreover, Professor Merry's own career illustrates to graduating law students the lengthy reach of legal scholarship into other academic fields and walks of life: her interdisciplinary research interweaves an understanding of legal traditions with examinations of governance, colonialism, human rights, and race and gender issues. Her work and the insights of her graduation address both exemplify one of the aims of McGill's legal education program: to prepare jurists not only to practice or study law but also to recognize and explore its reach into all aspects of everyday life. It is the McGill Law Journal's privilege to share Professor Merry's ideas with a broader audience and to dedicate the publication of her address to the Faculty of Law's 2013 graduating class.

MOT DE LA REDACTRICE

Lors de la ceremonie de remise des diplomes du printemps 2013, la Faculte de droit de l'Universite McGill a remis un doctorat honorifique en droit a la professeure Sally Engle Merry. Anthropologue judiciaire eminente aux Etats-Unis, elle a rappele dans son discours l'importance d'un cadre juridique pluraliste, tant pour l'etude du droit que pour une meilleure comprehension des rapports humains en general. Elle montre que les juristes se doivent d'etre sensibles aux effets de la coexistence de differents systemes juridiques. Elle s'appuie pour cela sur ses diverses experiences accumulees lors de ses travaux de recherche sur les roles multidimensionnels de ces systemes dans la societe--tel que, entre autres, la societe hawaierme postcoloniale, les milieux urbains americains, de l'Asie de l'Est et de l'Asie du Sud-Est.

Elle s'appuie egalement sur ses analyses portant sur la facon dont I'interaction des differents niveaux de legislations assure la protection des droits de l'homme. La carriere de la professeure Merry donne aux finissants en droit un excellent exemple de la portee significative de la recherche juridique pouvant toucher d'autres disciplmes academiques et differents milieux sociaux. Son approche interdisciplinaire allie une comprehension de differentes traditions juridiques avec des analyses des questions de gouvernance, de colonialisme, de droits de l'homme, de genre et de race. Ses travaux et son discours de remise des diplomes illustrent tous deux l'un des objectifs de la Faculte de droit de McGill: preparer des juristes non seulement a pratiquer ou a etudier le droit, mais aussi a en reconnaitre et explorer la portee dans plusieurs aspects du quotidien. C'est avec grand plaisir que la Revue de droit de McGill publie le discours de la professeure Merry pour en faire beneficier une plus vaste audience et le dedie a la promotion 2013 de la Faculte de droit.

It is a great honour to receive this degree, particularly from a law school that I have long admired for its commitment to social justice and human rights and to the concept of legal pluralism. I admire its effort to see law through the lens of socio-legal analysis, as well as its commitment to an international and a domestic focus on law. These critical perspectives contribute to McGill's visibility and its international reputation as an excellent law school. Today I want to talk in particular about the value of a focus on legal pluralism.

McGill's Faculty of Law has taken a leading role in developing and promoting this perspective on law. This is an extremely valuable framework, and I urge you to recognize its value and to hold on to it as you go out into the world as practicing or academic lawyers. Legal pluralism is not a theory of law or an explanation of how it functions, but a description of what law is like. It alerts observers to the fact that law takes many forms and can exist in parallel regimes. It provides a framework for thinking about law, about where to find it and how it works. As such, legal pluralism provides an invaluable guide to thinking about law in its multiple instantiations and intersections and to paying attention to alternative understandings and practices of law, particularly among the less powerful members of a society.

Legal pluralism offers three critical...