This book uses Niklas Luhmann's systems theory to explore how the legal system operates as one of modern society's subsystems. It demonstrates how this theory alters our understanding of some of the most important and controversial issues within law: the nature of judicial communication and legal argument * the claim that it can be right to disobey the law * the character of legal pluralism and globalization * time and its construction within the law * the significance of the rule of law and human rights and the role of appeals to, and within, the law. Systems theory enables the book to demonstrate how the legal system observes its own operations through its own communications, and how this contrasts with the manner in which the law is observed by other systems, such as the media and politics. In this context, the book explores the constraints imposed by systems, in particular the legal system, upon the individuals who participate in them. Observing Law through Systems Theory is a follow-up volume to A Sociology of Jurisprudence, also by Richard Nobles and David Schiff.

Richard Nobles is a Professor of Law at Queen Mary University of London.David Schiff is a Professor of Law at Queen Mary University of London.