In this book, it is argued that legal time is a Janus-faced phenomenon because it is based on two complement and contradictory forms of time: human and clock time. Clock time is the standardized conception of time; its uniform, precise, and predictable character makes it particularly apt for control and regulation in law. Human time, however, is always the time of someone, it is characterized by temporality (past, present, future), it is finite, irreversible, and cannot be stopped. One of the aims of this book is to show how an indeterminacy in legal time is at work; stemming from the intricate relationship between clock time and human time. The strain that I describe in legal time follows from the fact that human time is structurally different from legal time, a problem that cannot be solved in legal time. Yet, it can be acknowledged, and taking into account the peculiar character of human time in itself has normative value.

The success of legal time in migration law is exemplified by the multitude of possibilities to differentiate, categorize, and calculate human life by means of time. This is based on an intricate play between two complementing and contradicting forms of time: human time and clock time. The success of clock time in law can be related to its objective character, which allows for quantification and calculation. It is this quantification that provides a clarity and logic to processes that are otherwise rather intangible. It is the transformation from an individual process of human time into quantifiable, calculable chunks of clock time that enables the simple, general application in law. An extra value of this generality is its visibility, it is easy to demonstrate that a certain policy has changed based on clock time. However, legal time cannot be equated with clock time, the reference to time in law is always the time of someone, and therefore it is characterized by temporality. The virtues of legal time can be seen at work in several temporal differentiations in migration law: differentiation based on temporality, deadlines, qualification of time, and procedural differentiation.