Law as tradition

Abstract

This essay argues that to understand much that is most central to and characteristic of the nature and behaviour of law, one needs to supplement the ‘time-free’ conceptual staples of modern jurosprudence with an understanding of the nature and behaviour of traditions in social life. The article is concerned with three elements of such an understanding. First, it suggests that traditionality is to be found in almost all legal systems, not as a peripheral but as a central feature of them. Second, it questions the post-Enlightenment antinomy between tradition and change. Third, it argues that in at least two important senses of ‘tradition’, the traditionality of law is inescapable.