Doing "Law in/and Development": Theoretical, Methodological and Ethical Reflections

This chapter presents an overview of the field of law and development, through a brief account of its evolution as a tool of U.S. foreign policy state in the 1950s and 1960s, through its deconstruction in the 1970s and 1980s, and mainstream revitalisation since the 1990s. Having established the contours of law and development as a sub-field of socio-legal scholarship generally, the second part of the chapter will introduce the author’s research project about the role of transnational forms of law in relation to extractive (i.e., mining) development in Mongolia. It will particularly reflect on the way that critical ‘law in development’ commitments shaped the research questions and methodological choices. The author will also reflect some of the ethical dimensions of doing research in the name of law and development. The chapter concludes with a reflection about how law’s transnational and global character introduces new dimensions of inquiry to the field of law and development, as well as a caution against emerging forms of global legal instrumentalism in relation to development.