Law in an Age of Permacrisis

‘Permacrisis’ was the word of the year in 2022. By then it had become clear that several interconnected crises had, for decades, not shown any sign of abating. On all levels - local, regional and global - crises seem to have been caught in ever-intensifying spirals. In the spheres of international relations, politics, economics, environmental policy, energy and critical resource/infrastructure, demographic evolution, culture and ideological formation, unpredictability or the sheer unravelling of consistency seem to be spreading through linkages, nodes, and interlocked networks. Reactions and remedies often contributed to the overall instability, leading to a generalised sense of perpetual, unstoppable crisis.

Economic and ecological collapse is easier to imagine than before. This begs the question as to how law operates in an era marked by such a pervasive sense of ‘permacrisis’. Can law operate in what some might perhaps call an age of near entropy? Where and how does law manifest itself in times of continuous crisis? What is the future of law? Will law have to be re-imagined, or has it been re-imagined already? Where and how? The conference invites contributions to these and related questions and themes. 

Contact details: Professor Mark Featherstone at IJSLRoundtable2024@Keele.ac.uk