Legal Transplants and Policy Diffusion/Transfer (LAW-DS-TRANSP-22)

LAW-DS-TRANSP-22

Description

The notion of ‘legal transplants’ refers to the way legal systems incorporate ‘foreign’ elements, for example by copying the text of a foreign piece of legislation but also other forms of emulation (eg, related to case law and legal thinking). The literature on this topic has both a positive and a normative dimension: the former analyses how far legal transplants have been a frequent feature of legal systems, while the latter analyses how far they are a useful way of improving one’s law. It also has strong methodological interest as it discusses, for example, how far a foreign legal element can function outside its original social, cultural and political context. For all of these aspects, it is also interesting to note that, outside legal scholarship, the notions of ‘policy diffusion’ and ‘policy transfer’ discuss similar topics, often making use of empirical methods. This short seminar will introduce researchers from law, and possibly other departments, to these debates. This may appeal to researchers that use any of these concepts in their research but also to others who have a more general interest in legal evolution and law reform.

First, Second & Third Term: registration from 19 to 26 September.