The Rule of Law, Human Dignity and the Future of Democracy : Reclaiming Justice through Natural Law

This book investigates the existential crisis facing the rule of law as it becomes increasingly detached from its historical natural law foundations. The authors collectively argue that a purely immanent or “truncated” legal system—one stripped of transcendence—lacks the moral authority to resist “toolkit” conceptions of law that treat legal systems as neutral social facts to be exploited for private interests. Through a historical lens, the text traces the shift from realist natural law to modern “reconstructivist” perspectives, questioning whether the rule of law can survive the current eclipse of the metaphysical. Contributions evaluate the limits of procedural natural law, noting that while it respects human agency, it remains insufficient without substantive standards of the “Good and the Right” to foster human flourishing. Further chapters analyze the grounding of positive law, arguing it should be derived from naturally knowable moral principles rather than special revelation to better accommodate pluralistic societies. Finally, the book envisions a “fourth era” of the rule of law, proposing a multivalent approach—informed by Dooyeweerd’s “sphere sovereignty”—to address global challenges like technocratisation, AI, and decolonization, ultimately advocating for a human-centered legal order.