Custom Made—For a Non-chirographic Critical Legal Pluralism

Abstract

AbstractContemporary shifts in legal pluralism theory (from weak, intra-state pluralism to strong, extra-state pluralism and from socio-scientific to critical legal pluralism) have raised important new questions about law as a normative phenomenon. This article argues for the significance of implicit and inferential legal norms. It begins by considering a movement of thought—evangelicalism—that subordinates the implicit and informal to the explicit and authorized. The essay then outlines the principal features of a non-chirographic legal pluralism and explores how regimes of written rules are consistently made over by those whose conduct they are presumptively meant to govern.