We can only claim to understand another legal system when we know the context surrounding the positive law in which lawyers are trained. To avoid ethnocentricity and superficiality, we must go beyond judicial decisions, doctrinal writings and the black-letter law of codes and statutes and probe the 'deeper structures' where law meets cultural, political, socio-economic factors. It is only when we acquire such awareness and knowledge of the critical factors affecting both the backgrounds and implications of rules that it becomes possible to control the present and possibly future developments of the world's legal institutions. This collection of essays aims to provide the reader with a fundamental understanding of the dynamic relationship between the law and its cultural, political and socio-economic context.
• Improves the readers' awareness of both the historical backgrounds and actual implications of comparative law methodology • Examines current and possible future developments of legal institutions and issues affecting legal life of private, business and public actors • Provides scholars and students with a reasonable size and user friendly reservoir of legal perspectives
Contents
Editors' preface. Diapositives v. movies: the inner dynamics of the law and its comparative account: a companion M. Bussani and U. Mattei; Part I. Knowing Comparative Law: 1. Comparative law and neighbouring disciplines M. Reimann; 2. Political ideology and comparative law Duncan Kennedy; 3. Economic analysis and comparative law N. Garoupa and T. Ginsburg; 4. Comparative law and anthropology Lawrence Rosen; 5. Comparative law and language B. Pozzo; Part II. Comparative Law Fields: 6. Comparative studies in private law (insights from a European point of view) F. Werro; 7. Comparative administrative law F. Bignami; 8. Comparative constitutional law G. Frankenberg; 9. Comparative criminal justice E. Grande; 10. Comparative civil justice O. Chase and V. Varano; 11. Comparative law and the international organizations G. Bermann; Part III. Comparative Law in the Flux of Civilizations: 12. The East-Asian legal tradition T. Ruskola; 13. The Jewish legal tradition A. J. Jacobson and J. D. Bleich; 14. The Islamic legal tradition Khaled Abou El Fadl; 15. The Sub-Saharan legal tradition R. Sacco; 16. The Latin American and Caribbean legal tradition (repositioning Latin America and the Caribbean in the contemporary maps of comparative law) D. Lopez Medina; 17. Mixed legal systems V. Palmer; 18. Democracy and the Western legal tradition M. Bussani.
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