Natural law and the crisis of liberal legal order

Abstract

Structural problems in the development of a global civil society reflect the need for more equitable and harmonious legal norms aimed at effective international cooperation. Substantive scientific interest in the problems of natural law, justice and equality reflects trends in the development of the legal thought towards the creation of an integral rational theory of justice that will be effective in regulating conflicts of interests in the international system. Modern Western legal studies use various ways to solve the problem of substantiating the rationality of the established neoliberal life order and the morality that dominates in the context of the search for the way of sustainable development for the post-modern civilization. However, the discursive analysis of legal studies reflects two main trends in the development of doctrines on law and democracy: on the one hand, legal realism is determined by the imperative authority of the formal legal norms and the meaning of their judicial interpretation, and, on the other hand, commonly following the logic of natural law, the legislator always elevates to the rank of law some constructions of deontological ethics, giving them the properties of actual legal communication. Liberal discourse demonstrates a stable relationship between the quality of legal doctrine and social processes that are aimed at sustainable development. However, the rationality of narrow economic interests in the process of developing a legal system hinders the realization of fundamental natural rights and becomes one of the causes of the world community systemic social crisis.