Abstract
The world is a mess. Populism, xenophobia, and islamophobia; misogyny and racism; the closing of borders against the neediest – the existential crisis of modernity calls for a firm response from ethics. Why, instead of engaging with these problems through traditional ethics, worry about private international law, that most technical of technical fields of law? My claim in this chapter: not despite, because of its technical character. Private international law provides such an ethic, an ethic of responsivity. It provides us with a technique of ethics, a technique that helps us conceptualise and address some of the most pressing issues of our time. It is not only ethically relevant, it is itself an ethic. Let me explain.
Michaels, Ralf, Private International Law As an Ethic of Responsivity (September 14, 2018). Forthcoming, Diversity and Integration in Private International Law (Veronica Ruiz Abou-Nigm and Maria Blanca Noodt Taquela eds, Edinburgh University Press, 2019); Duke Law School Public Law and Legal Theory Series.
First posted 2018-09-19 10:40:25
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