Ugo Mattei & Laura Nader 
Plunder [PDF ebook] 
When the Rule of Law is Illegal

Plunder examines the dark side of the Rule of Law and
explores how it has been used as a powerful political weapon by
Western countries in order to legitimize plunder – the
practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors
victimizing weaker ones.

* Challenges traditionally held beliefs in the sanctity of the
Rule of Law by exposing its dark side

* Examines the Rule of Law’s relationship with ‘plunder’ –
the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors
victimizing weaker ones – in the service of Western cultural
and economic domination

* Provides global examples of plunder: of oil in Iraq; of ideas
in the form of Western patents and intellectual property rights
imposed on weaker peoples; and of liberty in the United States

* Dares to ask the paradoxical question – is the Rule of
Law itself illegal?

Cuprins

Preface.

Introduction.

1. Plunder and The Rule of Law.

An Anatomy of Plunder.

Plunder, Hegemony, and Positional Superiority.

Law, Plunder, and European Expansionism.

Institutionalizing Plunder: The Colonial Relationship and the
Imperial Project.

A Story of Continuity: Constructing the Empire of Law
(lessness).

2. Neo-liberalism: Economic Engine of Plunder.

The Argentinean Bonanza.

Neo-Liberalism: An Economic Theory of Simplification and a
Spectacular Project.

Structural Adjustment Programs and the Comprehensive Development
Framework.

Development Frameworks, Plunder, and the Rule of Law.

3. Before Neo-Liberalism: a Story of Western Plunder.

The European Roots of Colonial Plunder.

The Fundamental Structure of US Law as a Post-Colonial
Reception.

A Theory of Lack, Yesterday and Today.

Before Neo-Liberalism: Colonial Practices and Harmonious
Strategies–Yesterday and Now.

4. Plunder of Ideas and the Providers of Legitimacy.

Hegemony and legal Consciousness.

Intellectual Property as Plunder of Ideas.

Providing Legitimacy: Law and Economics.

Providing Legitimacy: Lawyers and Anthropologists.

5. Constructing the Conditions for Plunder.

Plunder of Oil: Iraq and Elsewhere.

The New World Order of Plunder.

Not Only Iraq: Plunder, War, and Legal Ideologies of
Intervention.

Institutional Lacks as Conditions for Plunder: Real or
Created?.

Double Standards Policy and Plunder.

Poverty: Justification for Intervention and Consequence of
Plunder.

6. International Imperial Law.

Reactive Institutions of Imperial Plunder.

U.S. Rule of Law: Forms of Global Domination.

The Globalization of the American Way.

An Ideological Institution of Global Governance: International
Law.

Holocaust Litigation: Back to the Future.

The Swallowing of International Law by U.S. law.

Economic Power and the U.S. Courts as Imperial Agencies.

7. Hegemony and Plunder. The Demise of the Rule of Law in the
United States.

Strategies to Subordinate the Rule of Law to Plunder.

Plunder in High Places: Enron and its Aftermath.

Plunder in Even Higher Places: Electoral Politics and
Plunder.

Plunder of Liberty: The War on Terror.

Plunder Undisrupted: The Discourse of Patriotism.

8. Beyond an Illegal Rule of Law?.

Summing Up: Plunder and The Global Transformation of the
Law.

Imperial Rule of Law or the People’s Rule of Law.

The Future of Plunder.

Notes to Text.

Selected Further Reading.

Documentary Film Resources.

Index

Despre autor

Ugo Mattei is Distinguished Professor of International and
Comparative Law at University of California, Hastings and at the
University of Turin, Italy. He is a widely published scholar in
economic and political aspects of law and his work has been
translated into many languages. His professional activities have
included substantive periods of teaching and research in Europe,
Africa, and Latin America.

Laura Nader is Professor of Anthropology at University of
California, Berkeley and is possibly the leading world authority in
Anthropology of Law. She has conducted fieldwork in Lebanon,
Mexico, and the US and her groundbreaking work on harmony ideology
and access to law and her unmatchable publication list make Nader
one of the most interesting voices in the current academic
scene.