Legal pluralism and the European Union

This article advances a pluralist model of a legal system. It claims that a legal system is pluralist when it contains inconsistent rules of recognition that cannot be legally resolved from within the system. The first part of the article sets out the model, demonstrating why it requires a departure from the classical accounts of law advanced by writers such as Hart and Kelsen. The second half applies this model to actual legal orders: first, to Rhodesia during the crisis of 1965, and then to the legal orders of the European Union. It is argued that there are interesting and important points of similarity between the two.The full-text of this article is not currently available in ORA, but you may be able to access the article via the publisher copy link on this record page. Citation: Barber, N. W. (2006). 'Legal pluralism and the European Union', European Law Journal, 12(3), 306-329. [Available at http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=1351-5993&site=1]. © 2006 N. W. Barker