ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the context of the debates of restorative justice by establishing two philosophical polarities of understanding conflict in alternative dispute resolution. Alternative dispute resolution is the most prominent example of this 'beyond' that relies on an explicitly philosophico-psychological approach to justice. The alternative approaches proffered by the restorative justice programme in alternative dispute resolution challenges the normativity of this philosophico-psychological attachment to justice. Debates around restorative justice practices, particularly those involving child sexual assaults, confront the contingency of enjoyment when it is illegal, taboo and traumatic. Like contemporary cultural legal studies, alternative dispute resolution draws on activities and theoretical concepts from outside law to handle disputes in parallel with, in lieu of, or in opposition to the traditional institutional forms such as the courts. If jurisprudence is a Wissenschaft, then it is possible to formulate the legal beyond the commonplace acknowledgement of law as merely dispute resolution within legal processes.