McGill Law Journal ~ Revue de droit de McGill
Book Note
Ronald Niezen, Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law (Cambridge, UK: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2010), pp 254. ISBN 978-0-52-176704-0.
How does a meeting of experts in a New York boardroom impact the
identity of an indigenous population in central Africa? Why do some cul-
tural rights claims capture the publics imagination while others are
merely glossed over by the public eye? And what is the nature of publics
to which social justice activists reach out?
In Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law,1 Niezen unpacks the
complicated and at times elusive relationship between a nebulous entity
known as the public and marginalized groups seeking recognition of
their collective cultural rights. The central theme of the book surrounds
the development of new forms of legal sociability, expressed above all
through identities that coalesce around legal claims and processes.2 Pub-
lics, Niezen argues, play a key role in shaping the identity and strategic
behavior of cultural rights claimants. By appealing to publics, these
claimants can push publics to lobby for their causes. Public mobilization
in turn helps to ensure the enforcement of international legal norms by
exerting pressure on the violating party, whether a state or otherwise.
Compliance is ultimately effected through moral suasion and reputation-
al costs,3 thereby ensuring the protection of the impugned cultural right.
After broadly defining the framework through which cultural rights
claimants make their appeals to publics, Niezen scrutinizes the nature of
the various actors involved. Niezen first provides a clearer definition of
publics, which exist largely in the imaginations of those who are reaching
out to them.4 He constructs the persona of mass publics5 by enumerat-
ing several characteristics of publics that are relevant to activists seeking
their attention: Publics are persuadable;6 they may tend to be hypocrit-
1 Ronald Niezen, Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law (Cambridge, UK: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2010).
2 Ibid at 217.
3 Ibid at 12.
4 Ibid at 26.
5 Ibid at 37.
6 Ibid.
396 (2011) 57:2 MCGILL LAW JOURNAL ~ REVUE DE DROIT DE MCGILL
ical;7 and they have short attention spans.8 Niezen then discusses the
process of cultural lobbying, where a group attempts to have its cultural
rights vindicated. Essential in an appeal to publics is the innocence of the
victimized group. Further, demonstrating that violence is directed against
the victimized group is not sufficient; rather, the group must justify its
dignity, distinctiveness and worth as a people,9 thus making the public
feel compelled to act.
The richness of Public Justice is in part due to the several streams of
enquiry that run parallel throughout the book. On one level, Niezen de-
velops the framework of public appeal. On another level, Niezen explains
how national and transnational institutions play a role in shapingand
even constructingthe identities of marginalized groups, themselves of-
ten traversing national boundaries. Chapter 4 discusses how the term
indigenous peoples originated in the 1950s as an abstract conception in
the offices of bureaucrats and how by the 1990s it had received universal
recognition as a new categor[y] of human belonging10 to which attached
the right to self-determination.
Niezens characterization of indigenous peoples raises questions about
minority rights claimants generally. Whereas indigenous peoples may at-
tract public interest by providing the memory of a time and place in
which … once lived … the illusion of permanence,11 other oppressed or
marginalized minority groups may not possess the same appeal. Niezen
does begin to address the issue of other (non-indigenous) minority groups
by mentioning the quagmire faced by refugees, who often possess little
traditional knowledge12 that would garner public empathy. However,
certain questions remain. Would the refugee dilemma not also extend to
many (or even most) immigrant or religious-minority populations? Niezen
stops short of drawing a clear distinction between indigenous and other
minority claims.
Niezen has a superb ability to cobble together multiple strands of
seemingly disparate thought, ultimately putting forward an innovative
conceptual synthesis. Public Justice carefully straddles conceptual en-
quiry and ethnographic interpretation. Large sections of the book are ded-
icated to defining the framework though which states and supra-state en-
tities play roles in creating cultural categories, and in turn how certain
7 Ibid at 41.
8 Ibid at 45.
9 Ibid at 72.
10 Ibid at 113.
11 Ibid at 132.
12 Ibid at 59.
BOOK NOTE ~ RECENSION SIMPLE 397
groups adopt these specific forms of sociability in lobbying publics for
their cultural rights. The discussion, however, does not simply float in ab-
straction, as Niezen is quick to plant his ideas in the real world. Niezen
relies on his own fieldwork with aboriginal communities in Canada as
well as on examples from several African communities to evince the be-
haviour of cultural rights claimants.
Public Justice is deeply interdisciplinary. Niezen skillfully draws from
anthropology, law, human rights, cultural studies, and political theory.
The book is principally a work in anthropology, though Niezen distin-
guishes it from typical works in the field that generally focus on a specific
community, as the book instead focuses on amorphous and intangible
publics. Still, the book will resonate with individuals in the field of human
rights law. The closing chapter on juridification argues that law, rather
than breaking barriers, serves to reinforce cultural and ethnic boundaries,
since legal sociability is often the corollary of legal processes and claims.
The reader should be forewarned that Niezen uses the term law in the
wide sense, which includes the soft law of public persuasion and indigna-
tion13 that has amongst its remedies public apologies and truth and rec-
onciliation commissions. Non-government organizations and human
rights activists may even find this book intriguing as it helps to provide a
clearer picture of the publics that are often the target of their efforts.
Overall, Public Justice is a highly original addition to the emerging
body of literature on the role of publics within the global order.14 It pro-
vides a lucid account of the intricate processes embedded within the in-
ternational human rights project, where oppressed groups must strategi-
cally place themselves in competing for the attention of publics.
Nafay Choudhury
13 Ibid at 23.
14 For other works concerning the notion of publics see e.g. Terry Clark, ed, Gabriel Tarde
On Communication and Social Influence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969);
Jrgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into
a Category of Bourgeois Society, translated by Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press, 1991); Sonia M Livingstone, ed, Audiences and Publics: When Cultural En-
gagement Matters for the Public Sphere (Bristol: Intellectual Press, 2005); Michael
Warner, Public and Counter Publics (Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2002).
