Madly Off In One Direction: McGill’s New Integrated, Poly-Jural, Trans-systemic Law Program

In 1994, the McGill Faculty of Law organized a two-day faculty retreat, seeking to lay the foundations of a new curriculum. This desire was in part a response to the contradictions inherent to the faculty, but also stemmed from a deep-seated preoccupation with ‘polyjurality’, non-state normativity, transnational legal systems, and legal theory—a preoccupation that dates back to its origins, over 150 years ago. The author, while praising McGill\u27s efforts at reinventing itself, laments a certain reserve toward interdisciplinarity. He conjectures that at least some understand the teaching of polyjurality and transsystemic law as a project that is largely concerned with interactions amongst recognized legal systems, as opposed to a way of exploring the parallel normative universe that exists alongside such systems. Even though challenges of recovery, contextualization, and fundamental rethinking stand in the way of transsystemic teaching, the author believes that McGill\u27s Faculty of Law, with clearly defined objectives and a curriculum designed to meet these objectives, provides a laudable alternative