ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the concept of mobile law and challenges the common perception of law’s stability as created by its relationship with the territorial nation-state and its position within the democratic government as a rule of law. I apply the mobility lens to the relationship between law and the nation-state, using the concept of the nation-state machine. I then discuss different but interrelated ways of understanding law as mobile, such as the embodiment or movement of law by both people and transnational organizations; embeddedness of movement in law’s interactions with other laws as well as with society, politics, and the economy; and mobility as a quality of law. All these approaches shift the focus from the objective and universal rules and regulations to concrete cases, concrete legal decisions, and concrete bodies. Finally, I analyse the implications of the shift from stability to mobility of law.
