ELTRG Seminar: Jorge Luis Fabra-Zamora (University of Buffalo) - ‘The Legality of Sports and Leagues Reconsidered’

Location:
Moot Court Room,
Old College
Date/time
Thu 23 January 2025
15:00-17:00
This is a seminar organised by the Edinburgh Legal Theory Research Group. The speaker Jorge Luis Fabra-Zamora, from University of Buffalo, will be presenting his paper on ‘The Legality of Sports and Leagues Reconsidered’.
Our seminars consist of a 30-minute presentation given by the author, followed by a 60 to 90-minute Q&A. This is not a pre-read event, but the paper will be circulated beforehand through our mailing list. To subscribe, please send an email to edinburgh.legal.theory@gmail.com.
Author bio: Jorge Luis Fabra-Zamora is Associate Professor of Law at University of Buffalo. His research interests include Legal Theory, Jurisprudence, Torts, Globalization, International Human Rights Law, and Transitional Justice.
Abstract: Many writers in the flourishing field of the jurisprudence of sports argue that sports and leagues are types of law. This article critically examines this view. The argument begins with a criticism of standard arguments supporting such a position that I name the linguistic and systematic arguments. Then, I outline a novel account of practice-based normative phenomena, which draws on my liberal interpretation of some central themes of theories of analytical jurisprudence. My account includes a novel account of the distinctiveness of law, which restricts the domain of law to those normative orders constituting political communities—namely, large-scale norm-created groups that regulate important politico-moral issues through the exercise of strong forms of social pressure. With this view at hand, I reject the view that sports’ normative orders are best conceived as legal orders while recognizing the legal character of some leagues such as FIFA.