Comparative Law Beyond Post-Modernism

Abstract

The legal version of post-modernism has not failed to challenge comparative law. It points out that, traditionally, comparatists have participated in a project of objectivity, universalism and neutrality of law, of which the “new” approach to comparative law is altogether sceptical.1In the era of globalisation, both the discipline and its critique have gained relevance. What the transition of post-socialist countries and the unification of Europe have effected regionally, globalisation now accomplishes on a global scale: it creates desires for harmonisation and, as a pre-requisite, legal comparison. However, not only the technical function of comparative law is needed, but also its critical potential. In the process of globalisation, different legal systems and different cultures are confronted with each other and must interact. This provokes new questions about the options and limits of comparative law and legal unification, regarding, for instance, the applicability of specific moral and legal standards to other cultures by comparatists and law-makers. These questions are all the more pressing as we begin to realise that governing globalisation, in particular economic globalisation, with the help of global law perhaps requires a concept of a global legal order which is based on a “global legal pluralism”.2