The most up-to-date and contextualised offering for comparative law students and scholars, referencing the newest research in the field.

Comparative Law offers a thorough grounding in the subject for students and scholars of comparative law alike, critically debating both traditional and modern approaches to the subject and using examples from a range of legal systems gives the reader a truly global perspective. Covering essential academic debates and comparative law methodology, its contextualised approach draws on examples from politics, economics and development studies to provide an original contribution to topics of comparative law. This new edition: is fully revised and updated throughout to reflect contemporary research, contains more examples from many areas of law and there is also an increased discussion of the relevance of regional, international, transnational and global laws for comparative law. Suitable for students taking courses in comparative law and related fields, this book offers a fresh contextualised and cosmopolitan perspective on the subject.

This book uses the philosophy of Thomas Kuhn to provide a new vision of the development of European comparative law that will challenge and inspire scholars in the field. With the 'empathic' use of some ideas from Kuhn's theories on the history of science – paradigm, paradigm-shift, puzzle-solving research and incommensurability – the book rethinks the modern history of European comparative law from the late 19th century to the modern day. It argues that three major paradigms determine modern comparative law: - historical and comparative jurisprudence, - droit comparé, and - post-World War II comparative law. It concludes that contemporary methodological trends are not signs of a paradigm-shift toward a postmodern and culturalist understanding of comparative law, but that the new approach spreads the idea of methodological plurality.

Now in its second edition, this textbook presents a critical rethinking of the study of comparative law and legal theory in a globalising world, and proposes an alternative model. It highlights the inadequacies of current Western theoretical approaches in comparative law, international law, legal theory and jurisprudence, especially for studying Asian and African laws, arguing that they are too parochial and eurocentric to meet global challenges. Menski argues for combining modern natural law theories with positivist and socio-legal traditions, building an interactive, triangular concept of legal pluralism. Advocated as the fourth major approach to legal theory, this model is applied in analysing the historical and conceptual development of Hindu law, Muslim law, African laws and Chinese law.

Comparative Law offers a thorough grounding in the subject for students and scholars of comparative law alike, critically debating both traditional and modern approaches to the subject and using examples from a range of legal systems gives the reader a truly global perspective. Covering essential academic debates and comparative law methodology, its contextualised approach draws on examples from politics, economics and development studies to provide an original contribution to topics of comparative law. This new edition: is fully revised and updated throughout to reflect contemporary research, contains more examples from many areas of law and there is also an increased discussion of the relevance of regional, international, transnational and global laws for comparative law. Suitable for students taking courses in comparative law and related fields, this book offers a fresh contextualised and cosmopolitan perspective on the subject.

In Legal Transplants, one of the world's foremost authorities on legal history and comparative law puts forth a clear and concise statement of his controversial thesis on the way that law has developed throughout history. When it was first published in 1974, Legal Transplants sparked both praise and outrage. Alan Watson's argument challenges the long-prevailing notion that a close connection exists between the law and the society in which it operates. His main thesis is that a society's laws do not usually develop as a logical outgrowth of its own experience. Instead, he contends, the laws of one society are primarily borrowed from other societies; therefore, most law operates in a society very different from the one for which it was originally created. Utilizing a wealth of primary sources, Watson illustrates his argument with examples ranging from the ancient Near East, ancient Rome, early modern Europe, Puritan New England, and modern New Zealand. The resulting picture of the law's surprising longevity and acceptance in foreign conditions carries important implications for legal historians and sociologists. The law cannot be used as a tool to understand society, Watson believes, without a careful consideration of legal transplants. For this edition, Watson has written a new afterword in which he places his original study in the context of more recent scholarship and offers some new reflections on legal borrowings, law, and society.