Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law.

• Author: Choudhury, Nafay
• Position: Book review

Ronald Niezen, Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp 254. ISBN 978-0-52-176704-0.

How does a meeting of experts in a New York boardroom impact the identity of an indigenous population in central Africa? Why do some cultural rights claims capture the public's imagination while others are merely glossed over by the public eye? And what is the nature of "publics" to which social justice activists reach out?

In Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law, (1) Niezen unpacks the complicated and at times elusive relationship between a nebulous entity known as the "public" and marginalized groups seeking recognition of their collective cultural rights. The central theme of the book surrounds the "development of new forms of legal sociability, expressed above all through identities that coalesce around legal claims and processes." (2) Publics, Niezen argues, play a key role in shaping the identity and strategic behavior of cultural rights claimants. By appealing to publics, these claimants can push publics to lobby for their causes. Public mobilization in turn helps to ensure the enforcement of international legal norms by exerting pressure on the violating party, whether a state or otherwise. Compliance is ultimately effected through "moral suasion and reputational costs," (3) thereby ensuring the protection of the impugned cultural right.

After broadly defining the framework through which cultural rights claimants make their appeals to publics, Niezen scrutinizes the nature of the various actors involved. Niezen first provides a clearer definition of publics, which "exist largely in the imaginations of those who are reaching out to them." (4) He constructs the "persona of mass publics" (5) by enumerating several characteristics of publics that are relevant to activists seeking their attention: "Publics are persuadable;" (6) they may tend to be "hypocritical;" (7) and they "have short attention spans." (8) Niezen then discusses the process of cultural lobbying, where a group attempts to have its cultural rights vindicated. Essential in an appeal to publics is the innocence of the victimized group. Further, demonstrating that violence is directed against the victimized group is not sufficient; rather, the group must justify its "dignity, distinctiveness and worth" as a people, (9) thus making the public feel compelled to act.

The richness of Public Justice is in part due to the several...