 The influential field of Critical Legal Studies, or CLS, that emerged in the 1970s played an important role in developing new approaches to the study of how the law affects and is affected by social domination. Influenced by some strands in continental philosophy, CLS scholars showed how legal arguments and concepts could covertly support existing power relations (Douzinas 2000). Early CLS scholars such as Duncan Kennedy (2008) and Roberto Magabeira Unger (2015) argued that the pattern of social effects produced by legal decisions indicates that the law is not an impartial arbiter but largely an arm of existing hierarchies.