The School of Computer Science and Communication at KTH, the Faculty of Law at Lund University, and the Department of Law at the University of Gothenburg are conducting the 2012 Critical Legal Conference with the theme Gardens of Justice. The conference will be held September 14-16, 2012.
Proposals should consist of a short abstract (max 250 words). Deadline for individual papers May 31, 2012.
For more information, contact Leif Dahlberg: dahlberg[at]csc.kth.se im
Although the theme may be interpreted in different ways, it suggests thinking about law and justice as a physical as well as a social environment, created for specific purposes, at a certain distance from society and yet as an integral part of it. The theme also invites you to think about justice as a concrete metaphor rather than an abstract concept. Just like any ordinary garden, legal institutions affect both people working in them and people who are just passing through their arrangements.
The theme Gardens of Justice further suggests a plurality of justice gardens that function together or that are at times at odds with each other. There are for instance well ordered French gardens, with meticulously trimmed plants and straight angles, but that also plays tricks on your perception. There are English gardens that simultaneously look natural un-written and well kept, inviting you to take a slow stroll or perhaps sit down and read a book. There are closed gardens, surrounded by fences, and with limited access for ordinary people. There are gardens organized around ruins, lets call them Roman gardens, where you can get a sense of the historical past, but without feeling threatened by its strangeness. There are Japanese stone gardens made for meditation rather than movement. There are zoological gardens, where you can study all those animal species that do not have a proper sense of justice, no social contracts, no inequality and social injustice, and no legal systems. There is, indeed, the Jungle, a real or imaginary place outside the Gardens of Law.
