Unjust laws and illegal norms

Emanuela Carbonara; Francesco Parisi; Georg von Wangenheim

doi:10.1016/j.irle.2012.03.001

Unjust laws and illegal norms

Emanuela Carbonara, Francesco Parisi, Georg von Wangenheim

Academics (Law)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

Due to a variety of circumstances, lawmakers occasionally create laws whose aims are perceived as outright unjust by the majority of the people. In other situations, the law may utilize improper means for the pursuit of a just goal. In all such cases, lawmaking processes generate rules that do not reflect the values of the underlying population. In these cases individuals may face legal commands or prohibitions that conflict with their sense of justice or fairness. Individuals can oppose unjust laws through protest. Social opposition to unjust laws may trigger social norms that can have countervailing effects on legal intervention. The dynamic effects of these phenomena are the object of this paper.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	285-299
Number of pages	15
Journal	International Review of Law and Economics
Volume	32
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irle.2012.03.001
State	Published - Sep 2012

Keywords

Civil disobedience
Countervailing effect
Expressive function
Law enforcement
Social norms

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Unjust laws and illegal norms

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Keywords

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