Abstract

The evolution of the present legal system is powered by the contradictory double-structure of a law that is at once is repressive and emancipatory. I take three examples, one from the early stage of the twentieth century’s legal transformations, and two from the present. They all show that the latent emancipatory potential of public law can be activated to challenge repressive function of hegemonic law. The first example is concerned with the challenge of imperial law from within the managerial mindset of the legal system, the second shows that every modern constitutional law “can strike back”. The third one emphasizes the tension between the Kantian constitutional mindset and the managerial mindset that dominates present international law.