Plunder

The Rule of Law has long been cherished in the US as the ultimate defender of civil liberty and the American way of life - a Rule of Law which no one can quite define, but everyone supports. In this provocative new book, Ugo Mattei and Laura Nader wage a frontal assault on this treasured belief in the sanctity of the Rule of Law, unflinchingly exploring its previously neglected dark side. They expose its intimate relationship with plunder - the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker ones - in the service of Western cultural and economic domination.

Boldly conceived and vibrantly written, Plunder dares to ask the paradoxical question - is the Rule of Law itself illegal? Mattei and Nader expose global examples of plunder: of Native American lands, to the plunder of oil in Iraq; of ideas in the form of Western patents and intellectual property rights imposed on weaker peoples; and of liberty and the demise of Rule of Law in the United States. This thought-provoking text is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary law, politics, and social justice.