H. Patrick Glenn (1940–2014), Professor of Law and former Director of the Institute of Comparative Law at McGill University, was a key figure in the global discourse on comparative law. This collection is intended to honor Professor Glenn's intellectual legacy by engaging critically with his ideas, especially focusing on his visions of a 'cosmopolitan state' and of law conceptualized as 'tradition'. The book explores the intellectual history of comparative law as a discipline, its attempts to push the objects of its study beyond the positive law of the nation-state, and both its potential and the challenges it must confront in the face of the complex phenomena of globalization and the internationalization of law. An international group of leading scholars in comparative law, legal philosophy, legal sociology, and legal history takes stock of the field of comparative law and where it is headed.

"I have always thought that Patrick Glenn's personal features, his modest and unassuming way of communicating, his persistent open-mindedness to new and others' arguments, also lie at the core of his scholarly work. In the following pages, I will try to show this connection by putting in context and in perspective his legacy as a scholar. Notwithstanding his impressive production, there is no doubt that Patrick Glenn will be long remembered for his opus magnum and for the debates it triggered. In my view, Legal Traditions of the World1 is grounded upon three key notions: Law, Tradition, and Conciliation. I will address these notions critically and sequentially, as if they were strands of a thread through which both Patrick Glenn's personality and scholarship are woven"--

Inspired by comparative law scholar Patrick Glenn's work, an international group of legal scholars explores the state of the discipline.

We live in a world of legal pluralism, where a single act or actor is potentially regulated by multiple legal or quasi-legal regimes imposed by state, substate, transnational, supranational and nonstate communities. Navigating these spheres of complex overlapping legal authority is confusing and we cannot expect territorial borders to solve all these problems. At the same time, those hoping to create one universal set of legal rules are also likely to be disappointed by the sheer variety of human communities and interests. Instead, we need an alternative jurisprudence, one that seeks to create or preserve spaces for productive interaction among multiple, overlapping legal systems by developing procedural mechanisms, institutions and practices that aim to manage, without eliminating, the legal pluralism we see around us. Global Legal Pluralism provides a broad synthesis across a variety of legal doctrines and academic disciplines and offers a novel conceptualization of law and globalization.

In this book, Alec Stone Sweet and Clare Ryan provide an accessible introduction to Kantian constitutional theory and the law and politics of European rights protection. Part I sets out Kant's blueprint for achieving Perpetual Peace and constitutional justice within and beyond the nation state. Part II applies these ideas to explain the gradual constitutionalization of a Cosmopolitan Legal Order: a transnational legal system in which justiciable rights are held by individuals; where public officials bear the obligation to fulfil the fundamental rights of all who come within the scope of their jurisdiction; and where domestic and transnational judges supervise how officials act. Such an order was instantiated in Europe through the combined effects of Protocol no. 11 (1998) to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the incorporation of the Convention into national law. The authors then describe and assess the strengthening of the European Court's capacities to meet the challenge of chronic failures of protection at the domestic level; its progressive approach to the "qualified" rights covering privacy and family life, and the freedoms of expression, conscience, and religion; the robust enforcement of the "absolute" rights, including the prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment; and its determined efforts to render justice to all people that come under its jurisdiction, including non-citizens whose rights are violated beyond Europe. Today, the Strasbourg Court is the most active and important rights-protecting court in the world, its jurisprudence a catalyst for the construction of a cosmopolitan constitution in Europe and beyond.

In this book, Alec Stone Sweet and Clare Ryan provide an accessible introduction to Kantian constitutional theory and the law and politics of European rights protection. Part I sets out Kant's blueprint for achieving Perpetual Peace and constitutional justice within and beyond the nation state. Part II applies these ideas to explain the gradual constitutionalization of a Cosmopolitan Legal Order: a transnational legal system in which justiciable rights are held by individuals; where public officials bear the obligation to fulfil the fundamental rights of all who come within the scope of their jurisdiction; and where domestic and transnational judges supervise how officials act. Such an order was instantiated in Europe through the combined effects of Protocol no. 11 (1998) to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the incorporation of the Convention into national law. The authors then describe and assess the strengthening of the European Court's capacities to meet the challenge of chronic failures of protection at the domestic level; its progressive approach to the "qualified" rights covering privacy and family life, and the freedoms of expression, conscience, and religion; the robust enforcement of the "absolute" rights, including the prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment; and its determined efforts to render justice to all people that come under its jurisdiction, including non-citizens whose rights are violated beyond Europe. Today, the Strasbourg Court is the most active and important rights-protecting court in the world, its jurisprudence a catalyst for the construction of a cosmopolitan constitution in Europe and beyond.

The idea of the 'nation-state' has failed, Glenn argues, and a major shift in our understanding of the state is needed. He provides an original approach by situating cosmopolitanism in its historical context and demonstrating that the state is necessarily cosmopolitan in character, and has always been subject to transnational law-making.