Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction of Law

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 international law department , SBU

2 department of international law, faculty of law, SBU

10.29252/jlr.2021.222358.1934

Abstract

Deconstruction, which brings to mind the name of Jacques Derrida, has a challenging relation with law and legal studies. Nevertheless, the belief in the obvious clarity of the legal text, and the concealment of the law-making violence, necessitates the deconstruction of the law, and requires consideration of this thought in legal theory. Discussions that have so far focused on the relation between deconstruction and legal studies can be divided into two general categories; The first category seeks to turn deconstruction into a technique of legal reasoning, and the other seeks to address its moral side. But merely establishing a relation between Derrida and law, if at the cost of eliminating the radical side of deconstruction and turning it into a method or moral advice, does not make much difference in status quo. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent the transformation of deconstruction in the mainstream legal theory, and to emphasize its intervening aspect. In doing so, one can seek to highlight the third and radical type of legal thinking relation with deconstruction. Accordingly, the present article, after examining the relationship between deconstruction and legal studies, seeks to critically analyze the types of legal theories influenced by Derrida's thinking with an analytical-critical method, and to emphasize the deconstruction of law as a movement which exposes and summons the hidden myths and silenced voices of law, and in this way, breaks the one and only logos of law and opens a way beyond it.

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