The margin of appreciation, domestic irregularity and domestic court rulings in ECHR environmental jurisprudence: Global legal pluralism in action

Global legal pluralism is concerned, inter alia, with the growing multiplicity of normative legal orders and the ways in which these different orders intersect and are accommodated with one another. The different means used for accommodation will have a critical bearing on how individuals fare within them. This article examines the recent environmental jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights to explore some of the means of reaching an accommodation between national legal orders and the European Convention. Certain types of accommodation – such as the margin of appreciation given to states by the Court – are well known. In essence, such mechanisms of legal pluralism raise a presumptive barrier which generally works for the state and against the individual rights-bearer. However, the principal focus of the current article is on a less well-known, recent set of pluralistic devices employed by the Court, which typically operate presumptively in the other direction, in favour of the individual. First, the Court looks to instances of breaches of domestic environmental law (albeit not in isolation); and second, it places an emphasis on whether domestic courts have ruled against the relevant activity. Where domestic standards have been breached or national courts have ruled against the state, then, presumptive weight is typically shifted towards the individual.

Working with legal pluralism: widowhood, property inheritance and poverty alleviation in urban Senegal

This article explores the role of women's inheritance and ownership of property in urban Senegal. It shows how being able to inherit and own property promotes the economic and emotional security of widows and their children in urban areas, and discusses the challenges posed by legal pluralism in working on poverty alleviation and social protection in the city.

Legal pluralism and progressive constitutionalism: An introduction to the South African challenge for post-national governace

The aim of this article is to contribute to the current academic debate on pluralistmechanisms of post-national governance as a particular type of ‘stateless law’. Moreprecisely, this article is conceived as an introduction to aid further research on the shape(and extent) that post-national governance may eventually assume (and reach) in SouthAfrica. Attention is, therefore, paid to legal pluralism as a key factor of pluralist settings ofpost-national government. An overview of the essence and features of post-nationalgovernance is provided, and a brief comparison is made between hard hierarchical andsoft-networked forms of governance. In pursuing the suggested roadmap, reference is madeto the current European landscape on post-national governance, which is ontologicallyinevitable in discussing the essence, structure, aims, challenges and limitations ofpost-national governance. Moreover, the necessity of adopting a comparative modusinvestigandi is due to the circumstance that although South Africa and the EuropeanUnion (EU) share important elements (e.g., legal pluralism, financial instability andfuture common challenges), South Africa has an extremely progressive constitution — aresult that the EU has been unable to achieve formally. Thus, while explaining whySouth Africa may represent fertile ground for such an architecture of governance, this articlediscusses why the South African Constitution may be a ‘value add’ that may help post-national governance avoid the difficulties thus far encountered on the Europeancontinent.