Areas of Law: Three Questions in Special Jurisprudence

Abstract

This article addresses three fundamental questions about a key phenomenon in special jurisprudence, 'areas of law': (i) what is an area of law; (ii) what are the consequences of dividing law into distinct areas; and (iii) what constitutes the foundations of an area of law. It claims that (i) 'an area of law' is a set of legal norms that are intersubjectively recognised by the legal complex as a subset of legal norms in a given jurisdiction; (ii) the sub-division of law into multiple areas matters to the content and scope of legal doctrine, to law's perceived legitimacy and possibly to its effectiveness; and (iii) the search for the normative foundations of an area of law is typically an inqu..