Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
ORCID (Links to author’s additional scholarship at ORCID.org)
Abstract
The chapter explores how a metaphor for the rule of law created by the playwright Robert Bolt captures the difficulty that Russia has experienced in its self-proclaimed pursuit of a rule-of-law state: "The law is not a 'light' for you or any man to see by; the law is n instrument of any kind. The law is a causeway upon which, so long as he keeps to it, a citizen may walk safely." In Russia, the failure to build a rule-of-law state has been, among other things, a failure to create what this metaphor describes as the essence of that concept. The essay concludes with a case study taken from the author's experience as an expert invited to submit a report to the Russian President's Council on the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.
Publication Title
The Legal Doctrines of the Rule of Law and the Legal State (Rechtsstaat), Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice
Document Type
Book Chapter
Keywords
Rule of Law, Russia, Khodorkovsky, Metaphor, Robert Bolt
Recommended Citation
Jeffrey Kahn, The Law is a Causeway: Metaphor and the Rule of Law in Russia in THE LEGAL DOCTRINES OF THE RULE OF LAW AND THE LEGAL STATE (RECHTSSTAAT), IUS GENTIUM: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON LAW AND JUSTICE 38 (J.R. Silkenat et al., eds., 2014)