Methodological directions of Latin American legal science

Abstract

The methodology of legal science in Latin America has common features with the global trends in the development of the methodology of legal research; at the same time, there are features of the development of legal thought and legal understanding that have a cultural and historical nature. The purpose of the study is to consider certain areas of the methodology of Latin American legal science. Philosophical and legal thought in Latin America develops within the framework of jusnaturalism and positivism and various variants of these theories. Latin American legal science is characterized by an appeal to customary Indian law, and its elements are included in the current legal systems of Latin American countries (legal pluralism). In the focus of the Latin American legal doctrine, law appears as a social phenomenon, a cultural phenomenon and part of social philosophy. The development of information technologies, their introduction into lawmaking and legal proceedings, the creation of machine-readable law raises the question of further ways of developing law and legal thought in two areas - technical improvement and traditional reflection on social processes in the humanitarian science.