As law's institutional configurations stand, comparative law is a relatively new discipline. The first specialized journals and chairs, for example, go back a mere two hundred years or so. Yet, in its two centuries of institutional existence, comparative law has been the focus of much discussion, mostly by comparatists themselves reflecting on their practice. Indeed, some of this thinking came firmly to establish itself as a governing epistemology within the field. This book holds that the time has nonetheless come, even for such a young venture as comparative law, to engage in a re-thinking of its intellectual ways. Specifically, three comparatists hailing from different horizons investigate various assumptions and lines of reasoning that must invite reconsideration. The principal ambition informing the work is to optimize the interpretive rewards that the comparison of laws is in a position to generate. Not limited to a particular country or jurisdiction, Rethinking Comparative Law aims to attract a large audience comprising students and scholars from diverse cultural backgrounds. Undergraduate or postgraduate law students and lawyers with an interest in comparative law will find the book helpful for a better appreciation of the many implications arising from the increased interaction with foreign law in a globalizing world.

Combining insights from comparative legal theory, jurisprudence and legal history, this collection examines the legal and constitutional identity of Central and Eastern Europe. Although the various countries of Central and Eastern Europe have often compared themselves to the West, the failure of these countries to engage with one another has resulted in a whole spectrum of legal identities remaining hidden. This book takes up a comparison of such identities within the region of Central and Eastern Europe, and following from the prima facie similarity between the region’s countries, given the experience of communism and legal transfers. The book thereby illuminates, through comparisons, the distinct legal identities of the 16 Central and Eastern European states; whilst, at the same time, arguing for a shared Central and Eastern European legal identity. This book will appeal to scholars and students in the area of comparative law, as well as lawyers, political scientists, sociologists and historians with particular interests in Central and Eastern Europe.

This collection of papers explores the concept of constitutional identity in theory and with specific reference to Central and Eastern Europe at a time when many countries across but also beyond the region seem to appeal to an identarian rhetoric in order to justify their illiberal political attitudes. Drawing on law, political science, philosophy or sociology, the contributions address salient questions of constitutional and political theory like the understanding of (constitutional) identity in a post-Westphalian legal order, the extent and the stakes of judicial dialogue between national and supranational (European) judges and the so-called abusive legal transplants. As such, the book also touches upon more general topics such as the rule of law, populism, globalization, legal consciousness and legal culture.