General Jurisprudence: Then and Now. Twining’s Case for a General Theory of Law From a Global Perspective

Abstract

More than ten years have gone by since, in a paper published in the Maastricht
Journal of European and Comparative Law on Globalisation and Comparative Law (a
shorter version of which has been reproduced in Globalisation and Legal Theory,
2000), William Twining declared his sympathy to Mr. Palomar, the lonely,
disillusioned protagonist of the namesake novel by Italo Calvino.
“As a jurist”, confessed then Twining, “I often feel like Mr. Palomar. One’s
efforts to master even a single legal phenomenon – to obtain a comprehensive
understanding of it – seems futile. Even a single rule or concept can be as
elusive as a wave or a tuft of grass. Yet, in an era of globalization, we are
under increasing pressure to focus on the whole universe of legal phenomena”
(175).