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Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, Antonina; Joakim, --- "Introduction" [2010] ELECD 111; in Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, Antonina; Nergelius, Joakim (eds), "New Directions in Comparative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: New Directions in Comparative Law

Editor(s): Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, Antonina; Nergelius, Joakim

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848443181

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, Antonina; Joakim,

Number of pages: 12

Extract:

Introduction
Antonina Bakardjieva Engelbrekt and
Joakim Nergelius
This book opens with a bold claim. It argues that a discipline with a long and
reverent history such as comparative law is presently characterised by an
important new dynamic that is taking it into new directions. Some may object
that it is inherent to human nature that each generation perceives its experi-
ences as new and unique, and that scholars are particularly susceptible to this
proclivity to overemphasise novelty, given their vocation-related search for the
new and the unconventional. At the same time scholarly work, at least theo-
retically premised on the notions of scrupulous research, rigorous methods and
honest reporting, should allow for verifying and falsifying sweeping claims
and vague intuitions. So, can we with a level of academic seriousness main-
tain that there is something significantly new and particular about the way
comparative law is approached, employed and practised today, compared with
the days of Montesquieu and Aristotle?
The various contributions in this book give different and only partial
answers to this overarching question. Our own intuitions when embarking on
this project were based on a number of observations. The first is probably a
trivial one, namely that the undeniable swings and sways of globalisation have
unleashed a previously unseen mobility of human and economic resources.
Supported by virtually instantaneous and ubiquitous communication
networks, this mobility produces a dramatic increase of human interaction
across geographical regions, and inevitably a corresponding interaction
between different legal traditions, institutions and mindsets (Hughes,
...