Many legal experts no longer share an unbounded trust in the potential of law to govern society efficiently and responsibly. They often experience the 'limits of the law', as they are confronted with striking inadequacies in their legal toolbox, with inner inconsistencies of the law, with problems of enforcement and obedience, and with undesired side-effects, and so on.

The contributors to this book engage in the challenging task of making sense of this experience. Against the background of broader cultural transformations (such as globalisation, new technologies, individualism and cultural diversity), they revisit a wide range of areas of the law and map different types of limits in relation to some basic functions and characteristics of the law. Additionally, they offer a set of strategies to manage justifiably law's limits, such as dedramatising law's limits, conceptual refinement ('constructivism'), striking the right balance between different functions of the law, seeking for complementarity between law and other social practices.

Contenu
The Limits of the Law.- Private Law and the Limits of Legal Dogmatics.- The Limits of the Law of Obligations.- Labour Law and the Limits of Dogmatic Legal Thinking.- The Limits of Consumer Law in Europe.- The Limits of Legality in the Criminal Law.- Corporate Wrongdoing and the Limits of the Criminal Law.- Regulating Prison Life: A Case Study of the Inmate Disciplinary System.- Criminal Law, Victims, and the Limits of Therapeutic Consequentialism.- Restorative Justice, Freedom, and the Limits of the Law.- Rebuilding Trust in the Former Yugoslavia: Overcoming the Limits of the Formal Justice System.- Legitimacy in the European Union and the Limits of the Law.- The Limits of the Law and the Development of the EU.- The Limits of Substantive International Economic Law: In Support of Reasonable Extraterritorial Jurisdiction.- When Law Meets Power: The Limits of Public International Law and the Recourse to Military Force.- Is the Rule of Law a Limit on Popular Sovereignty?.- Constitutional Ideals, National Identity, and the Limits of the Law.- Privacy Rights as Human Rights: No Limits?.- The Limits of the International Petition Right for Individuals: A Case Study of the ECtHR.- The Limits of Human Rights Law in Human Development.- Limits of Human Rights Protection from the Perspective of Legal Anthropology.- Functions and Limits of Patent Law.- Technology and the End of Law.- Darknets and the Future of Freedom of Expression in the Information Society.- Facing the Limits of the Law (Conclusion).