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The Transnational Legal Ordering Of The Death Penalty, Stefanie Neumeier, Wayne Sandholtz

UC Irvine Journal of International, Transnational, and Comparative Law

A transnational legal order (TLO) authoritatively shapes “the

understanding and practice of law” in a specific area of social activity,

involving both state and civil society actors, and linking national, regional,

and international levels. We argue that a TLO has emerged and settled

since 1945 around capital punishment. Our analysis of the death penalty

TLO treats “bottom-up” and “top-down” effects as interconnected,

addresses the creation of legal order at both national and international levels,

and emphasizes the recursivity linking developments at both levels. We trace

the development of death penalty abolition from its origins in the immediate

aftermath of World …