The approach of immanent critique assumes that legal norms can be assessed critically without stepping outside existing legal system. It suggests that law can engage in self-reflection, questioning its own foundations. The aim of the workshop is to examine the potential of immanent critique for our work and establish common ground. In the workshop, we will also explore how it differs from external critique, focusing on its ability to diagnose legal failures and reimagine the law through existing ‘seeds of change’.
Key questions include: What are its philosophical foundations? How does it compare to other critiques? What are its limitations—does it risk being overly relativistic or conservative? Can it critique its own boundaries? This session will also introduce the philosophical tradition behind immanent critique while fostering discussion and collaboration.
The workshop will also allow for an opportunity to reflect on the reconstructive potential of critical theory in legal research. To that end, this project engages with the praxis of immanent critique, which offers a nuanced pathway for critically engaging with social structures, cultural practices, and epistemological assumptions. Rather than analysing social structures, institutions, or ideologies from an external vantage point, immanent critique works by exposing contradictions and tensions inherent within those very structures. In this way, it reveals how and when the reality of social practices falls short of its own ideals and thereby points to areas ripe for transformation or improvement. It seeks to identify unrealised normative potentials and therefore offers a powerful tool for scholars challenging the status quo from within established norms, concepts, and practices.
The field of legal studies offers a particularly fertile ground for the method of immanent critique. In law there is a long tradition in Critical Legal Studies (CLS), this tradition has often been criticised for its lack of reconstructive potential. While it excels at exposing the limits and contradictions of legal reasoning, CLS leaves open the question of what can be built in the aftermath of critique. At a time when many of the legal frameworks underpinning multilateral cooperation – including the UN, WTO, international Human Rights treaties and the project of European integration – are in crisis, legal scholars face the question how to use critical insights to propose legal reforms that political hierarchies, social inequities and economical inequalities.
It is for this reason that this project aims to bring together PhD students and fellows from across the EUI with the objective to (a) increase our understanding and knowledge of the method of immanent critique and (b) operationalise this method of critique in our own research projects. No prior knowledge is required; all theories and concepts will be explained and discussed thoroughly. We will organise three reading groups in which the method of immanent critique is discussed as well as a a workshop in which experts in different disciplines engage with and respond to the work of participants.