Course Guides - Emerging Legal Systems

Course Description:

This course is designed to examine the emergence of new legal systems as the result of the interaction between unofficial and official law.  Students will have the opportunity to explore the recent scholarship on “legal pluralism”, which is the concept that within one geo-political space, a number of legal systems coexist and constitute the total legal system of the state.  We will also examine certain customary legal systems in Africa and the impact of Western Colonial law on those systems.  We will also discuss Roma (Gypsy) law, as an example of an insular legal system within the official state legal systems of the United States and Europe.  Finally, we will explore the impact of Islamic law in the U.S. and Europe, with particular focus on the emerging Western/Islamic commercial law.  The course will be taught as a two-hour seminar course.  (2 credits) Paper

Faculty Who Teach This Course:

Subject Covered Presently in Collection by:

Print Collection

K190-K195   Ethnological Jurisprudence – Including Primitive Law
K197   Law of Gypsies – Romanies
K236   Universality and Non-Universality of Law – Legal Polycentricity
K470   Legal Polycentricity
K605   Unification, Approximation and Harmonization
K3171   Comparative Law – Constitutional Principles – Rule of Law
K3375   Colonial Law
KBP1-KBP4860   Islamic Law
KSK68   Law of Kenya

Legal Research Databases

DCLI Webpage Links

Under Subject Area

  • International Law

Course Listed Under the following Law School Areas of Interest

  • International Law