Law & Society Review

Michael Sierra-Arévalo
Rutgers University-Newark

The TASER--a weapon that uses electric current to incapacitate a subject by causing complete neuromuscular incapacitation--is ubiquitous among U.S. police officers. Spurred by pressure to reduce the lethality of police force, this force technology it is now used by more than 17,000 U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Proponents of TASERs are quick to point out that research shows that most TASER deployments do not result in serious injury or death, and that TASERs provide officers with a useful, less-than-lethal alternative to their firearms. TASER critics, in turn, emphasize that even if TASERs are rarely lethal, 50,000 volts cause excruciating pain, fear, and psychological distress. They further emphasize that the TASER, like any weapon, can still be misused by police officers.

Though a large body of research examines police force, little is known about how officers make their use-of-force decisions in light of this new, less-than-lethal t…

The first opportunity is the Sociolegal Studies Early Career Writing Workshop, March 21-23, 2019, at the University of Cape Town. This intensive workshop, co-sponsored by Law & Society Review, is for a small group of early career scholars from any university in Africa to receive feedback on papers in progress and mentoring on writing/publishing processes. The goal is to help one another toward writing goals and publication. The Workshop will cover travel expenses and accommodation. Applications (including draft paper and letter of reference) are due January 14, 2019. For details, please visit the Early Career Workshop website here. For additional questions, contact pbl-cls@uct.ac.za.

Another opportunity is the Law and Society in Africa conference, April 1-3, 2019, organized by American University Cairo's Law & Society Research Unit. The first Law and Society in Africa Conference, held in South Africa in 2016, was a great success, with more than 100 attendees…

By Mona Lynch & Marisa Omori
We are in the midst of a national opioid addiction crisis that rivals the 1980s’ drug crisis involving crack cocaine. So far, the official governmental response to the opioid crisis has been much more measured, treating the problem more as a public health issue than a criminal justice one. Such was not the case with crack cocaine. As some commentators have noted, a major difference between these two crises is the public face of the addict in each instance, as distinguished by race. 
It is hard to overstate the punitive impact of the crack frenzy, built on racialized stereotypes about both crack addicts and their suppliers, and unleashed across the U.S. The federal government led the way in turning the crack panic into legislation, passing draconian sentencing statutes that incorporated a 100-1 powder-crack cocaine weight disparity in the mandatory minimum sentence thresholds. Federal law enforcement increasingly targeted crack cocaine suspects, wieldin…

By Susan Sterett
Law & Society Review Co-Editor

One thing I know for sure after having co-edited Law and Society Review for almost three years is that just about every college and university would like more publications from faculty members. Many colleges and universities around the world want people to write for peer-reviewed journals, so like other journals, Law and Society Review has been getting an increasing number of submissions. Some journals have big backlogs. Some journals have stopped accepting submissions. Everyone is overwhelmed with content. How can you prepare your paper for LSR? This post will point to a few resources that could help, based in my experience from editing, conversations with other editors, and my conversations at the wonderful 2017 sociolegal studies early career workshop at the University of Cape Town. All have made me rethink how I submit to journals.

A few thoughts, most of which are readily found on the internet. Even so, many people may no…

By Paulina García-DelMoral, University of Guelph and
Pamela Neumann, Bucknell University 


Since 2010, eighteen Latin American countries have passed laws criminalizing femicidio (femicide) or feminicidio (feminicide). Femicidio refers to the misogynous killing of women by men. Extending this definition, feminicidio emphasizes the complicity of the state in such violence by tolerating its impunity. Feminist activists across the region have played a critical role in these efforts to hold states accountable for gendered violence, often through the mobilization of international human rights law in the supranational arenas of the UN and Inter-American systems.
Yet our article “The Making and Unmaking of Feminicidio/Femicidio Laws in Mexico and Nicaragua” shows how the domestic impact of feminists’ legal activism varies depending on states’ investment in achieving international legitimacy through a commitment to human rights. By comparing the law-making process in Mexico and Nicaragua, we argu…

By Matthew Canfield
Drake University



In 2007-2008 the prices of staple cereal skyrocketed, catalyzing a global food crisis that sent over 150 million people into hunger. Activists in social movements and international NGOs identified global land grabs as a key contributor to the crisis. Across the world, foreign states and multi-national corporations were acquiring large tracts of land for investment and to feed their own populations. Transnational agrarian movements demanded a response to this global problem. Eventually, this dispute was negotiated in the United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security, a multi-stakeholder arena of collaborative governance. Between 2012-2014, activists—together with states, international institutions, and the private sector—developed the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems. How did the challenge of the “global land grab” become one of “responsible investment”? What can this case tell us about the practice of new mod…

By Alba Ruibal, Researcher at the National Scientific and Technological Research Council (CONICET), Argentina

Caption: "Mirtha Sisnero, main plaintiff in gender discrimination case in Salta, Argentina". 

The literature on law and social movements in Latin America has generally focused on the relationship between social actors with national high courts. This emphasis is partly due to the importance of the recent creation or empowerment of constitutional courts across the region, after democratization and judicial reform processes. However, understanding the dynamics of subnational legal mobilization in these settings is fundamental, given that, especially in federal regimes, socio-legal processes at the local level are crucial for the effective implementation and enforcement of rights.

My article Federalism and Subnational Legal Mobilization: Feminist Litigation Strategies in Salta, Argentina examines the factors that can influence subnational legal mobilization processes. …