Commodification and the Law

• Department of Law

Presented by the Department of Law, Conversations on New Histories of Capitalism and the Information Society Working Group, this conference will enrich present debates on law and capitalism by advancing critical understanding of the role played by law in current and historical commodification processes.

It will bring together established academics and early-stage researchers to present compelling case studies from a range of legal domains and historical periods that demonstrate the expansion of market structures in society. Interventions will include two keynote speeches and eight themed panels encouraging debate on issues encompassing data and innovation, global supply chains and contractual injustice, personal and social values in democratic societies, and the role of economic and historical methods in legal analysis. All of these discussions will place lawyers and lawmakers in the spotlight to reveal the parts they have played – and continue to play – in the propagation of commodities. The conference will also explore the contours and consequences of the commodification of law itself to better map the tangled relations between law and the market.

The conference will feature keynote speeches by Prof. Daniel Markovits (Yale School of Law) and by Dr. Johanna Stark (Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance)