More on Justice Without the State

��?���¾hingvellir, site of the meeting of the Al��?���¾ing

“With laws shall our land be built up but with
lawlessness laid waste.”
— Njal, chapter 70, Njal’s Saga

I’m at a conference on popular justice and learning a great deal about the advantages and disadvantages of securing justice and legal order outside of the state. I’ve gotten a few emails from students interested in writing about the topic, so in addition to some of the papers I’ve mentioned below, I’ll add a couple that may be helpful (based on my going through some of my library in preparation for this conference). On the Icelandic Commonwealth, some other good papers include: Sigurdur Lindal, “Law and Legislation in the Icelandic Commonwealth,” Scandinavian Studies in Law, Vol. 37, 1993, 55-92; Birgir Thor Runolfsson, “Institutional Evolution in the Icelandic Commonwealth,” Constitutional Political Economy, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1993, 97-125; David Friedman, “Private Creation and Enforcement of Law: A Historical Case,” Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 8, March 1979, 339-415. More later.