Law, lawyers and race : critical race theory from the United States to Europe

Abstract

Critical Race Theory is a familiar and important strand of North American legal scholarship, but it is virtually unknown in Europe. This book aims to bring Critical Race Theory to a European context. Outlining its development in North America, and bringing its insights to bear upon European law and legal scholarship, the book considers Critical Race Theorys relevance in Europe, and particularly in civil law traditions, where the relationship between race and law is often presented as anodyne. Redressing the almost exclusive European focus and reading of anti-racism in terms of anti-Semitism, the conflation of race and racism with issues related to citizenship and religion, and the more general reluctance to speak of race, the book outlines the elements of a European Critical Race Theory. For law, it is demonstrated, is just as deeply involved in constructing, discriminating and subordinating racial minorities in the European context as it is in the American one even if, as this book shows, it does so in different ways. The CRT approach adopted in this book illustrates the reasons why the relationship between race and law in European civil law jurisdictions is far from anodyne. Law plays a critical role in the construction, subordination and discrimination against racial minorities in Europe, making it comparable, albeit in slightly different ways, to the American experience of racial discrimination. Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-Roma and anti-Black racism constitute a fundamental factor, often tacitly accepted, in the relationship between law and race in Europe. Consequently, the broadly shared anti-race and anti-racist position is problematic because it acts to the detriment of victims of racism while privileging the White, Christian, male majority.