ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I move from a standpoint arguing that multicultural and pluralist societies produce social conflicts because diversities seem to be unavoidable contradictions. When faced with conflicts, we almost instinctively go on the defensive; we tend to avoid conflicts rather than deal with them. The law is ontologically a social structure conceived as a set of practices to prevent conflicts. It prescribes several judicial models to manage conflicts deciding who is right and who is wrong in accordance with its prescriptions. In this way, the law has become, over time, almost a self-referential institution, which appears self-sufficient and often even distant from the mechanisms that work in everyday life. Since the law is prevalently an instrument of power, conflicts arising from and feeding off the coexistence of plural societies often appear impervious to legal dynamics.
