Paper's abstract

Mark Tushnet, Critical Legal Studies in the United States Today
The American movement of critical legal studies remains alive as a form of legal theory, even if other organizational instances have taken it over. The present study retraces the course of this legal theory by taking a close look at its main thesis on the indeterminability of law and the recent evolution of American constitutionalist thinking. The analytical impossibility to come to a single correct solution to legal issues does not come from the language indeterminability, but from the experience of jurists - scholars, lawyers or judges. their experience stresses the difficulty of handling legal material according to rules, but also confirms the significance of sociological processes in consolidating legal interpretations. The contradictions inherent in law, the very root of its indeterminability, come from conflicting psychological and sociological components - sometimes individualistic, sometimes collectivist - which are embedded in legal concepts. The philosophy of civic republicanism attempted, despite the criticisms of conservative lawyers, to impose a coherent historical justification of constitutional justice and of judicial activism favoring collective aims, but this philosophy was also finally overcome by the critical thesis of the indeterminability of law.

Key Words : USA, Legal Critical Studies
t. 44, 2000 : p. 419-425

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