Fabio de Sa e Silva’s mixed-methods analysis of Facebook interactions between legal officials and the general public during Brazil’s Lava Jato scandal illustrates social media’s increasingly critical role in the development of legal consciousness, as well as the importance of considering shifting cultural schemata when studying and developing anticorruption initiatives.

AMHERST, Mass. – Starting in 2014, Brazil’s Lava Jato investigation, which implicated numerous key political and business leaders in money laundering, eclipsed Watergate as the largest corruption scandal of all time—but this isn’t the only detail that makes Lava Jato remarkable. The investigation was narrated in real time by prosecutors on social media, leading to an unprecedented amount of communication between legal officials and the general public.

The Law & Society Review’s September 2022 article, “Relational legal consciousness and anticorruption: Lava Jato, social media interactions, and the co-production of law’s detraction in Brazil (2017–2019),” has become one of the first articles in translation published under the journal’s new translation policy.  In the article, University of Oklahoma Professor Fabio de Sa e Silva, with translation assistance from Michael López Stewart (Brazilian Institute of Education), explores the role of these social media interactions in creating a cultural schema that allowed for the ascendance of Brazil’s former president, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro. His conclusion, that the conversations between prosecutors and citizens laid the groundwork for a cultural shift away from the rule of law, carries implications for both legal consciousness and anticorruption research.

Lava Jato uncovered significant amounts of corruption, not just amongst leaders at oil company Petrobras and some of the top construction companies in Brazil, but also amongst powerful politicians in Brazil and other countries in South America, Central America, and Africa. The political ramifications were staggering; former Worker’s Party President and Petrobras board member Dilma Roussef was impeached in 2016, while former leftist President Lula da Silva was arrested and disqualified from the presidential election in 2018 under Lava Jato charges of corruption and money laundering. While Lava Jato initially received widespread support and celebration from the academy, the media, and various national and international organizations, its “methods, legacy, and outcomes,” which arguably include Bolsonaro’s election, have developed a murkier legacy.

Lava Jato became a phenomenon, not just due to the scope of the corruption it unveiled, but also due to an unprecedented level of transparency that granted the general public front-row seats to the investigation.

“LJ had a distinctive public profile…Repeatedly, investigators conducted phases of searches, seizures, and arrest orders. These operations, which had catchy nicknames, kept the public’s attention and made the case evolve like a TV series—if not a Brazilian soap opera,” Professor de Sa a Silva explains.

Lava Jato prosecutors and investigators established “intense communication with the Brazilian public”– the Public Prosecutor’s Office created a website with details about the investigation, Judge Sergio Moro released court documents to the media, investigators and prosecutors gave press conferences and coined #lavajato, and social media conversations about “law, justice, corruption, and politics” flourished.

To understand the impact of these social media conversations on cultural perceptions of corruption in politics, Professor de Sa e Silva pulled a dataset of 75,000 Facebook posts about Lava Jato from 2017 – 2019. Focusing on the top 1%, and primarily on posts by prosecutors Deltan Dallagnol and Carlos Lima, he used a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods to examine URLs, dates, text, video, images, likes, engagement, and comments. The apparent transparency of the Lava Jato officials flattened the perceived hierarchy between them and the general public, leading the latter to feel more empowered as legal actors. Interestingly, many Brazilians grew to conflate corruption with the political institutions in place at the time, and justice with individuals like Dallagnol and Lima, who were nearly deified during the height of the investigations.

“…my study indicates that identities emerged or were solidified, such as the divine judge/prosecutor and the active citizen fighting against corruption, which, in turn, did not remain restricted to digital life, but supported people’s mobilization on the streets and in public debates, with attacks on Congress and the STF,” de Sa e Silva writes.

“By 2019…support for LJ and for Bolsonaro, and hostility toward Congress and the STF, were impossible to disentangle.”

Professor de Sa e Silva’s study has key implications for legal consciousness and anticorruption research. Regarding the former, he illustrates that social media posts and interactions should be taken seriously as valid data sources, since activity on these platforms play an increasingly significant role in the development of legal consciousness and political identity. For the latter, he argues that anticorruption research should focus on “constitutive” rather than “instrumental” perspectives.

“My findings indicate that culture is a social construct that is being coproduced through the interventions and, as such, that some anticorruption crusaders may be the authors as much as they are the victims of their failures.”

You can learn more about Volume 59, Issue 1 here. LSA members have access to this volume and the entire back catalog of LSR via Cambridge University Press here.

The Law and Society Association is seeking its next Editor or Editorial Team for the Law & Society Review. The Editor Search Committee is eager to receive nominations, including self-nominations, for this important position in the law and society community.

Founded in 1966 as the official journal of the Law and Society Association, Law & Society Review is regarded by sociolegal scholars worldwide as a leading journal in the field. LSR is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes sociolegal scholarship on the relationship between society and the law, laws, legal institutions, and legal processes. Such scholarship includes theoretically motivated empirical articles (whether using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods), purely theoretical essays (drawing on secondary literature) that contribute to important debates within the field of law and society, and reviews of books published by law and society scholars. Reflecting LSA’s community of interdisciplinary and international law and society scholars, LSR welcomes law and society-style studies of any jurisdiction informed by any of the multiple disciplines that constitute LSA membership.

The journal receives approximately 350 new manuscript submissions per year, publishes four issues per year, and had an impact factor of 2.3 in 2023. For more information on LSR’s aims and scope, please see: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/law-and-society-review.

Editors are expected to:

• Determine and curate content for the four regular issues each year and meet a timely publication schedule
• Manage and oversee the peer review process, making the final decision on the publication of incoming manuscripts
• Invite commentaries for the LSA President’s biannual address to be published within a year of the address
• Recruit, train, and supervise editorial assistants and work with the managing editor
• Recruit and maintain an Editorial Board
• Provide a written report on the state of the journal to the LSA Board of Trustees prior to the LSA Annual Meeting
• Meet at least annually with the LSA Board of Trustees
• Convene a meeting of the Editorial Board during the annual LSA Annual Meeting
• Work with the LSA Publication Committee to address issues that come up
• Meet at least annually with representatives from Cambridge University Press
• Answer queries and correspondence from prospective authors
• Revise the current editorial policy as needed and keep it updated for duration of the term
• Maintain a membership in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and follow their guidelines
• Host a panel at the annual LSA Annual Meeting

The Editor’s term is for three years (2026-2029) and includes an ex officio appointment to the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee of the Law and Society Association. Given the time needed for transition and the lead time to publication, new editors will begin receiving/processing new manuscripts in October 2025, at which point the policies of the new editors will go into effect. A period of overlapping responsibilities will take place until January 10^th, 2026, with the current editors handling submission of revised manuscripts and the new Editor(s) handling initial submissions. The new Editor’s first issue will be due to the publisher in late March 2026 and published in June 2026.

The membership of LSA includes a variety of perspectives of what constitutes the field of law and society. As the flagship journal, LSR is the organization’s primary forum for advancing the field’s scholarship. Therefore, candidates should articulate their particular vision for the journal in the cover letter. The ideal candidate will also have experience as a reviewer for Law & Society Review. Teams of co-editors are very welcome.

To apply, please submit the following to Karin D. Martin at kdmartin@uw.edu and to Steven Boutcher at steven.boutcher@lawandsociety.org:

1. CV(s)
2. A cover letter outlining areas of expertise, editorial experience, and a vision for the journal.
3. OPTIONAL: A letter of commitment from the candidate’s home institution stating interest in hosting the journal and outlining any potential support that will be available. Home institutions often provide support for editors, including course releases, editorial assistantships for students, flexible funding, and other resources that would provide the editor(s) with sufficient time and resources to accomplish their editorial duties. Please note that institutional support is not mandatory and the search committee is available to discuss options.

Review of applications will begin on February 1, 2025.

Interested candidates should feel free to reach out to any Editor Search Committee member:

Karin D. Martin – kdmartin@uw.edu

Frank Munger – Frank.Munger@nyls.edu

Ashley Rubin – atrubin@hawaii.edu

Jothie Rajah – jrajah@abfn.org

For queries about journal administration and experience, feel free to reach out to one of the current editors:

Katharina Heyer – heyer@hawaii.edu

Shauhin Talesh – stalesh@law.uci.edu

Ashley Rubin – atrubin@hawaii.edu

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Book Review Editor(s) Sought for Law & Society Review

The Law and Society Association is seeking its next Book Review Editor or Editorial Team for the Law & Society Review.

Founded in 1966 as the official journal of the Law and Society Association, Law & Society Review is regarded by sociolegal scholars worldwide as a leading journal in the field. LSR is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes sociolegal scholarship on the relationship between society and the law, laws, legal institutions, and legal processes.

Book review editors are expected to:

• Identify new books in the field, secure appropriate reviewers, edit reviews, and meet a timely publication schedule for the four regular issues each year
• Meet at least annually with the LSA Board of Trustees
• Work with the LSA Publication Committee to address issues that come up

The term for the book review editor or editorial team is three years (2026-2029) and includes an ex officio appointment to the Board of Trustees of the Law and Society Association. Given the time needed for transition and the lead time to publication, new book review editors will begin inviting reviewers to write book reviews in October 2025. To facilitate a smooth transition between book review editors, a period of overlapping responsibilities with the current team of book review editors will take place until January 10^th, 2026. The new book review editor’s first issue will be due to the publisher in late March 2026 and published in June 2026.

The membership of LSA includes a variety of perspectives of what constitutes the field of law and society. As the flagship journal, LSR is the organization’s primary forum for advancing the field’s scholarship. Therefore, candidates should articulate their particular vision for the book review section of the journal in the cover letter. The ideal candidate will be a sociolegal scholar who has published a monograph or a co-authored book.  Teams of co-editors are very welcome.

To apply, please submit the following to Karin D. Martin at kdmartin@uw.edu and to Steven Boutcher at steven.boutcher@lawandsociety.org:

1. CV(s)
2. A cover letter outlining areas of expertise and vision for the book review section of LSR
3. OPTIONAL: The cover letter may include an indication of support from the candidate’s home institution. Home institutions often provide support for book review editors, including administrative support, and a small amount of funding to provide the editor(s) with sufficient time and resources to accomplish their editorial duties. Please note that institutional support is not mandatory and the search committee is available to discuss options.

Interested candidates should feel free to reach out to any Editor Search Committee member or the current book review editorial team with questions:

Editor Search Committee

Karin D. Martin – kdmartin@uw.edu

Frank Munger – Frank.Munger@nyls.edu

Ashley Rubin – atrubin@hawaii.edu

Jothie Rajah – jrajah@abfn.org

Current Book Review Editorial Team

Jothie Rajah – jrajah@abfn.org

Eve Lester – Eve.Lester@anu.edu.au

Anna Reosti – areosti@abfn.org

If you are a LSA member, you already know that you have access to LSR. But you may not be aware that your membership now includes access to the entire back catalog, stretching back to the very first issue from 1966. To view the full catalog of LSR:

• Log in to your LSA member profile

• Click “Member Benefits”

• Click “Access Your Online LSR”

• Follow the link on the “LSR Online Subscription Access Instructions” page

• This will take you to the Cambridge Core website, which publishes LSR

• Click “All Issues”

• This will take you to the archives, organized by decade

To illustrate LSR’s influence over the years, we have compiled a list of the top ten most cited LSR articles throughout its history (as of September 25, 2024). Happy reading!

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The Role of Procedural Justice and Legitimacy in Shaping Public Support for Policing

Jason Sunshine and Tom R. Tyler, 2003

Abstract Excerpt: “This study explores two issues about police legitimacy. The first issue is the relative importance of police legitimacy in shaping public support of the police and policing activities, compared to the importance of instrumental judgments about (1) the risk that people will be caught and sanctioned for wrongdoing, (2) the performance of the police in fighting crime, and/or (3) the fairness of the distribution of police services.”

Why the “Haves” Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change

Marc Galanter, 1975

Abstract Excerpt: “This essay attempts to discern some of the general features of a legal system like the American by drawing on (and rearranging) commonplaces and less than systematic gleanings from the literature. The speculative and tentative nature of the assertions here will be apparent and is acknowledged here wholesale to spare myself and the reader repeated disclaimers.”

Legal Cynicism and (Subcultural?) Tolerance of Deviance: The Neighborhood Context of Racial Differences

Robert J. Sampson and Dawn Jeglum Bartusch, 1998

Abstract Excerpt: “We advance here a neighborhood-level perspective on racial differences in legal cynicism, dissatisfaction with police, and the tolerance of various forms of deviance. Our basic premise is that structural characteristics of neighborhoods explain variations in normative orientations about law, criminal justice, and deviance that are often confounded with the demographic characteristics of individuals.”

Legal Pluralism

Sally Engle Merry, 1988

Abstract Excerpt: “The intellectual odyssey of the concept of legal pluralism moves from the discovery of indigenous forms of law among remote African villagers and New Guinea tribesmen to debates concerning the pluralistic qualities of law under advanced capitalism. In the last decade, the concept of legal pluralism has been applied to the study of social and legal ordering in urban industrial societies, primarily the United States, Britain, and France. Indeed, given a sufficiently broad definition of the term legal system, virtually every society is legally plural, whether or not it has a colonial past. Legal pluralism is a central theme in the reconceptualization of the law/society relation.”

The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming . . .

William L.F. Felstiner, Richard L. Abel and Austin Sarat, 1981

Abstract Excerpt: “The emergence and transformation of disputes, especially before they enter formal legal institutions, is a neglected topic in the sociology of law. We provide a framework for studying the processes by which unperceived injurious experiences are—or are not—perceived (naming), do or do not become grievances (blaming) and ultimately disputes (claiming), as well as for subsequent transformations. We view each of these stages as subjective, unstable, reactive, complicated, and incomplete.” 

Enduring Individual Differences and Rational Choice Theories of Crime

Daniel S. Nagin and Raymond Paternoster, 1993

Abstract Excerpt: “In explaining crime, some criminological theories emphasize time-stable individual differences in propensity to offend while others emphasize more proximate and situational factors. Using scenario data from a sample of college undergraduates we have found evidence to support both positions. A measure of criminal propensity (poor self-control) was found to be significantly related to self-reported decisions to commit three offenses (drunk driving, theft, and sexual assault).” 

Law and Social Change: The Semi-Autonomous Social Field as an Appropriate Subject of Study

Sally Falk Moore, 1973

Abstract Excerpt: “In our highly centralized political system, with its advanced technology and communications apparatus, it is tempting to think that legal innovation can effect social change. Roscoe Pound perceived the law as a tool for social engineering (1965: 247–252). Some version of this idea is the current rationale for most legislation. Underlying the social engineering view is the assumption that social arrangements are susceptible to conscious human control, and that the instrument by means of which this control is to be achieved is the law. In such formulations “the law” is a short term for a very complex aggregation of principles, norms, ideas, rules, practices, and the activities of agencies of legislation, administration, adjudication and enforcement, backed by political power and legitimacy.”

Conscience, Significant Others, and Rational Choice: Extending the Deterrence Model

Harold G. Grasmick and Robert J. Bursik Jr., 1990

Abstract Excerpt: “We propose that significant others and conscience function as agents of social control in a manner similar to the State. All three pose possible threats or costs that are more or less certain and severe which actors take into account in considering whether or not to violate the law. State-imposed costs, which have been addressed in the literature on deterrence, are material deprivations in the form of fines and incarceration. Socially imposed costs are the embarrassment or loss of respect actors might experience when they violate norms which significant others support. Self-imposed costs are shame or guilt feelings which actors might impose upon themselves when they offend their own conscience by engaging in behaviors they consider morally wrong.” 

Subversive Stories and Hegemonic Tales: Toward a Sociology of Narrative

Patricia Ewick and Susan S. Silbey, 1995

Abstract Excerpt: “The authors outline a sociology of narrative—an analysis of the role of narrative in various social contexts, including academic sociolegal scholarship. Narratives are social acts that depend for their production and cognition on norms of performance and content that specify when, what, how, and why stories are told. Because narratives are situationally produced and interpreted, they have no necessary political or epistemological valence but depend on the particular context and organization of their production for their political effect.” 

What is Procedural Justice?: Criteria Used by Citizens to Assess the Fairness of Legal Procedures

Tom R. Tyler, 1988

Abstract Excerpt: “This paper examines procedural justice in the context of citizen experiences with the police and courts. It is based on interviews of 652 citizens with recent personal experiences involving those authorities. I will consider two issues: first, whether the justice of the procedures involved influences citizen satisfaction with outcomes and evaluations of legal authorities; and second, how citizens define “fair process” in such settings. The results replicate those of past studies, which found that procedural justice has a major influence on both satisfaction and evaluation. They further suggest that such procedural justice judgments are complex and multifaceted.”

AMHERST, Mass. – In 2017, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts infamously dismissed the use of social science data in the courtroom as “Sociological Gobbledygook” during a gerrymandering case (Gill v Whitford).  In other words, Chief Justice Roberts implied that social science research in the Court does not belong and could compromise the legitimacy of the high court.

The findings from Benjamin W. Woodson’s (University of Missouri-Kansas City) and Christopher M. Parker’s (University of Rhode Island) new Law & Society Review article challenges this rhetoric, suggesting that there is a place for social science in the courtroom. Their article titled “The Chief Justice Versus the Iconoclast: Popular Constitutionalism and Support for Using ‘Sociological Gobbledygook’ in Legal Decisions” provides a glimpse into the minds of Americans who support the notion of a representative Court that takes the public’s will into account when it comes to legal decisions. Published in the final 2021 issue of the Review, the study consists of two experiments involving the use of social science in court decisions.

Click Here to Read the Full Release

AMHERST, Mass. – In 1993, the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made the following statement to the Associated Press about her experience in the legal profession prior to being sworn in to serve on the high court: “When you are the only woman, all eyes are on you.”

In the current issue of the Law & Society Review (Volume 55, Issue 3), professors Laura P. Moyer (University of Louisville), John Szmer (University of North Carolina at Charlotte), Susan Haire (University of Georgia) and Robert K. Christensen (Brigham Young University) published a study on gender and racial differences between judges when it comes to opinion writing. Their article titled “‘All Eyes Are on You’: Gender, Race, and Opinion Writing on the US Courts of Appeals,” suggests the norms about crafting judicial opinions are gendered and racialized in ways that create higher workloads for women and non-white judges. They discovered that female and non-white judges go farther to explain and justify their rulings, compared to opinions written by their white male counterparts.

“While there is growing awareness of race and gender inequities in society, broadly, we were particularly interested to see how these might affect some of the very institutions involved in resolving equal protection claims: US federal courts,” explained the authors. “We found that courts are not immune.”

Click Here to read the full release on Lawandsociety.org.

AMHERST, Mass. – Volume 55, Issue 2 of the Law & Society Review will feature “Marginalized Legal Categories: Social Inequality, Family Structure, and the Laws of Intestacy” by Megan Doherty Bea (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Emily S. Taylor Poppe (University of California-Irvine). Through investigating the legal classification structure within the U.S. laws of intestacy, the authors find that the current laws neglect a significant portion of American families when a loved one passes away intestate. The study focuses specifically on the ways in which social classifications are embedded within law and create social and economic inequalities for non-traditional family structures. It further describes how law denigrates certain individuals or groups by incorporating systems of social classification into law.

“Sitting at the nexus of economic sociology, demography and law, this article considers how laws governing the transfer of property at death prioritize the needs of traditional marital families, despite the increasing prevalence of other family forms,” said Professor Taylor Poppe. “Our study highlights how personal definitions of ‘family’ may not align with assumptions about family form embedded in the laws of intestacy, with tangible material consequences.”

Click Here to read the full release!

Professor Statz describes how rural judges offer more leeway and support to their litigants in communities where civil legal aid initiatives fail to provide residents with access to justice

AMHERST, Mass. – The first Law & Society Review issue of 2021 (Volume 55, Issue 1) will feature Michele Statz’s article, “On Shared Suffering: Judicial Intimacy in the Rural Northland.” Drawing from four years of ethnographic fieldwork, Professor Statz’s study places its readers inside the “Northland” courtrooms of rural Wisconsin and Minnesota. Her research displays the intimate relationship that judges from these communities share with their litigants and demonstrates the hardships endured by both judges and their litigants due to the consequences of rural “legal deserts,” absent health and social services, and depressed local economies. 

Judges from these areas uniquely offer space, clarity and support for their litigants because available civil access to justice initiatives largely fail these rural communities. This occurs within the courtroom but also beyond it, namely via informal, creative and often very productive collaborations between tribal and state court judges. Statz’s fieldwork systematically considers the social and emotional toll that these efforts hold over the judges themselves in providing access to justice for their litigants.

“Through collaborative long-term research, my work explores the often overlooked efforts of rural judges and the broader context in which they work,” noted Statz. “As I show in the article, this context is incredibly complicated—one in which tribal and state court judges navigate rural lawyer shortages, under-resourced infrastructure and prevailing (but rurally-irrelevant) access to justice initiatives. The meaningful, intimate form of "access" that judges offer in response deserves careful attention—but so also does the heartbreaking toll of these efforts on judges themselves.”

Statz, an Assistant Professor for the Department of Family Medicine and Biobehavioral Health at the University of Minnesota and affiliated faculty with the University of Minnesota Law School, is an anthropologist of law specializing in rural access to justice. Her scholarship examines how socio-spatial dimensions of rurality influence legal advocacy, rights mobilization, and individual and community health.

Her article describes the tough decisions that rural judges in these tight-knit communities are burdened with, since their cases often feature individuals with civil legal needs or criminal defendants who they know on a personal level. They commonly see their litigants in local social settings like children’s sporting events, ceremony or church, grocery stores, or even in line at the local cinema. Many of these litigants are living in poverty and are frequently forced to represent themselves in court, due to the limited availability of reduced-fee legal services, which seldomly exists in rural places. These litigants are often the victims of state and federal neoliberal labor market reforms that leave affordable legal services out of reach.

In rural communities around the U.S., nearly 10,000,000 Americans live well below the federal poverty line, and three-quarters of these face at least one civil legal problem in a year. However, only 14 percent of rural residents—a rate less than half the national average—receive adequate assistance for civil legal problems. In Wisconsin, for instance, rural criminal defendants may wait up to four months before receiving a public defender, due to low salaries provided for court-appointed attorneys and a shortage of rural lawyers in these geographic areas.

These factors contribute to the inequality in civil legal aid services that are available in these regions—many of which require rural telecommunication and digital infrastructure. In Minnesota, for example, recent access to justice initiatives have included self-help forms, helplines and online advice systems that many of these low-income rural residents render as “barriers to justice.” These legal services typically fail to acknowledge limited or absent rural digital infrastructure—let alone the fact that many low-income residents simply cannot afford smart phones, personal computers and/or reliable transportation. As a result of these limitations, coupled with the high-density and social acquaintanceship characteristics of these rural communities, Statz finds, “what makes a rural courtroom accessible is the judge.”

The complex needs of these low-income residents largely remain unaddressed, given the spatial isolation, economically unstable conditions and local social services networks that are too widely dispersed to be implemented. Judges from these areas also experience the complex socio-spatial and legal needs of these low-income pro se litigants and are compelled to provide more leeway, support and clarity in the courtrooms.

As Statz puts it, “It means that many judges effectively self-identify not only as decision-makers, but as the eventual, if not only, source of respect, time, and ultimately, access for a growing wave of pro se litigants whom they often already know.” Similar to their litigants, Statz indicates that the judges also endure profound social and emotional trauma from the lack of resources dismally available across these rural communities.

Statz’s research is comprised of interviews conducted with low-income Northland residents, attorneys, and judges. In conducting her fieldwork, Statz was surprised to discover many rural judges wanted to discuss the substantial toll of the negotiations regarding judicial and administrative requirements, litigants’ needs and expectations and diminishing or tenuous funding. She finds that rural tribal and state court judges not only regularly encounter the complex socio-spatial and legal needs of low-income litigants but also live (and in a sense, endure) this complicated context themselves. She concludes that active judging of rural judges is uniquely inflected by place, which deserves further attention.

To read the full LSR article, visit the Wiley Online Library here.

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The Issue addresses the causes, conditions and consequences of immigration detention

AMHERST, Mass. – The Law & Society Review will release a Special Symposium on Immigration Detention published in the journal’s final issue of its 2020 volume, which will become available on November 28. Law and sociology professor Emily Ryo (University of Southern California Gould School of Law) served as special editor for this symposium, which features two innovative research articles that address the causes, conditions and consequences of immigration detention. The articles presented in the symposium further explore the social and political dynamics and legal mechanisms that have influenced the formation of modern immigration law practices.

“Studies on immigration detention are so critical for they can tell us about the legitimacy of our legal system,” said Ryo. “I am thankful that I have been part of bringing this special issue to fruition, and I hope that it will inspire new ways of expanding public knowledge about how immigration detention operates and its impacts on our communities.”

Ryo’s research examines questions of citizenship and international migration, which raise new challenges and opportunities for democracy and diversity. Currently, Ryo focuses on immigration detention, criminal justice and the legal attitudes and noncompliance of noncitizens.

The article “The Institutional Hearing Program: A Study of Prison-Based Immigration Courts in the United States,” by Ingrid Eagly (UCLA School of Law) and Steven Shafer (Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project), sheds light on the Institutional Hearing Program (IHP)—a 40-year-old prison-based immigration court system run by the United States Department of Justice. Prior to the study, little research has been conducted on this program, despite its role as a precursor to significant changes in immigration law. The study describes how carceral spaces have functioned simultaneously as sites of immigration enforcement and penal punishment.

Eagly and Shafer unravel the origins of the IHP, which immigration judges still use today to adjudicate deportation hearings inside the walls of prisons and jails. The article reveals how the IHP operates as a tool to expedite the deportation process in the United States, while limiting noncitizens of their access to justice. The IHP is responsible for such forms of deportation as stipulated removal, which relies on government lawyers to assist detainees in essentially deporting themselves, without ever stepping foot in court.

The IHP has further allowed prisons and jails to participate in supporting a segregated court system designed for noncitizens, often targeting specific nationalities. In doing so, proceedings can be completed in a single hearing. Representation by counsel within the IHP is dismal—between 1988 and 2019, only 10% of incarcerated noncitizens in IHP proceedings were represented by counsel at their initial case completion. The IHP data reveals that 93% of its participants were deported. Of the 226,400 deportations last year, 85% were of immigrants incarcerated in detention facilities. Many of these detained immigrants are those who are not a threat or danger to society. The findings in this study possess vital implications for understanding the relationship between immigration detention, racialized control of domestic migration and penal punishment.

While Eagly and Shafer’s study focuses on the system and institution, Mirian Martinez-Aranda’s article, “Collective Liminality: The Spillover Effects of Indeterminate Detention on Immigrant Families,” delves into the material and emotional impact immigration detention has on detainees and their families facing prolonged detention without a finite release date. The author introduces the concept of collective liminality, which is the condition of heightened threat and uncertainty experienced by detainees and their families, while the detainee awaits either release or deportation. The concept inherently demonstrates how immigration detention functions as a critical tool of immigrant surveillance, punishment and exclusion.

Martinez-Aranda, a UCLA Sociology graduate student, argues that damage to families emerges when the looming threat of deportation becomes more intense and tangible at the moment a loved one is detained. She highlights the grim risks, realities and hardships detainees face such as prison time, economic harm and permanent separation from family. These collateral consequences lead to indefinite adversity for not only the immigrant detainees, but their families too.

LSR’s Special Issue builds on the fundamental framework of sociolegal literature surrounding immigration, such as the extreme vulnerability of those detained. Ryo urges new research that focuses on ongoing contemporary concerns like the health and well-being of detained immigrants amidst a global pandemic. Given the lack of disinfection and social distancing in detention facilities, jails and prisons, where incarcerated immigrants are held, have become hotbeds for the spread of COVID-19. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had reported 7,055 confirmed coronavirus cases among immigration detainees by the beginning of November. Ryo also hopes that the Special Issue will inspire new research focus on other important issues relating to immigration detention, such as the treatment of migrant children and the privatization of immigration detention.

To view the full LSR Special Issue on Immigration Detention, visit the Wiley Online Library here at the end of the month when it becomes available.

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The article describes how the restrictive interpretation of international economic law controls and influences domestic government regulatory policies around the world

AMHERST, Mass. - International economic law shapes the world we live in. Political scientist Tim Dorlach (University of Bremen) and legal scholar Paul Mertenskötter (New York University School of Law) published “Interpreters of International Economic Law: Corporations and Bureaucrats in Contest over Chile's Nutrition Label,” in the latest issue of the Law & Society Review. Using an in-depth case study of the introduction of Chile’s 2015 nutrition labeling regulation aimed to discourage the consumption of unhealthy food products, the article provides insight into the uphill battle national government regulators face in a world of globalized regulatory policymaking.

"Our research demonstrates that World Trade Organization law allows member states much more regulatory autonomy than corporate actors tend to suggest, especially when regulations pursue clearly legitimate objectives such as the protection of public health,” Dorlach noted.

Transnational corporations often advance extremely restrictive interpretations of international economic law to challenge unwanted regulations. Dorlach and Mertenskötter shed light on the “missing middle” within the complex understanding of international economic law that national trade bureaucrats and transnational corporations strategically interpret to support their own interests. These interpretations affect key policy areas such as public health, environmental and consumer protection, and often influence which policies can be enacted. The authors argue that corporations deliberately attempt to prevent legitimate government action that threatens their commercial interests, using these extremely restrictive interpretations of international economic law as a vehicle.

Social regulators are at a disadvantage, given their limited financial resources and inexperience with international economic law. On the other hand, despite lacking any formal decision-making power, transnational corporations possess an array of financial and human resources at their fingertips and use their experience with WTO laws to their advantage. This allows them to disseminate partial interpretations of international economic laws directly to national regulators and via the WTO’s committees.

In the article, Dorlach and Mertenskötter draw on data from freedom-of-information requests and in-depth interviews to demonstrate how everyday interpretive practices of national bureaucrats and transnational corporations shape the policies that national governments can introduce.

The authors analyze the fight between the Chilean health ministry and the transnational food industry over regulatory measure legalities under the agreements of the WTO. Chile’s groundbreaking nutrition labeling regulation, in effort to mitigate unhealthy diets, obesity and noncommunicable diseases such as cancer and heart attack, required foods and drinks high in calories, sugar, salt and certain fats to carry front-of-pack warning labels and to comply with sales and marketing restrictions—restrictions aimed to ban unethical business practices like child-directed marketing.

Initially, the transnational food industry’s interpretations of WTO law rejected Chile’s right to mandate warning labels or prohibit the use of trademarked cartoon characters in advertising. But Chilean health bureaucrats eventually succeeded in introducing these regulatory innovations, turning their country into a worldwide leader in tackling the global obesity crisis. Similar battles “in the shadow” of international economic law, such as Canada versus the tobacco industry and Indonesia’s attempts to introduce similar food labeling, are also cited in the study.

Fear tactics such as raising legal concerns, sending threat letters from global law firms and legally-framed stakeholder submissions during public consultations shape how national regulators understand international economic law and what they believe their “legally available” policy space is. Using WTO law as a tool, corporations can engage in interpretive capture, especially within more vulnerable governments, and influence or overpower national social regulators in an effort to achieve more favorable commercial regulations at the expense of the public interest.

The paper concludes that “training social regulators in the everyday practices of international economic

law is crucial to increasing states’ regulatory autonomy.” The authors hope social regulators will have access to legal advice and training in order to be able to better understand the flexibilities that international economic law does provide.

The full article can be viewed on the Wiley Online Library here.

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