David Nelken is Professor of Law at the University of Macerata in Italy.
Johannes Feest is Professor of Law at the University of Bremen.

This exciting collection looks at the theory and practice of legal borrowing and adaptation in different areas of the world: Europe,the USA and Latin America, S.E. Asia and Japan. Many of the contributors focus on fundamental theoretical issues. What are legal transplants? What is the role of the state in producing socio-legal change? What are the conditions of successful legal transfers? How is globalisation changing these conditions? Such problems are also discussed with reference to substantive and specific case studies. When and why did Japanese rules of product liability come into line with those of the EU and the USA? How and why did judicial review come late to the legal systems of Holland and Scandinavia? Why is the present wave of USA-influenced legal reforms in Latin Amercia apparently having more success than the previous round? How does competition between the legal and accountancy professions affect patterns of bankruptcy? The chapters in this volume, which include a comprehensive theoretical introduction, offer a range of valuable insights even if they also show that the

PART ONE: THEORISING LEGAL ADAPTATION
Introduction
1. Towards a Sociology of Legal Adaptation
David Nelken
2. What "Legal Transplants"?
Pierre Legrand
3. Is There a Logic of Legal Transplants?
Roger Cotterrell
4. Some Comments on Cotterrell and Legal Transplants
Lawrence Friedman
5. State Formation and Legal Change: On the Impact of International Politics
Alex Jettinghoff
6. From Globalisation of Law to Law under Globalisation
Wolf Heydebrand
PART TWO: CASE-STUDIES OF LEGAL ADAPTATION
Introduction
7. The Still-Birth and Re-birth of Product Liability in Japan
Luke Nottage
8. The Empty Space of the Modern in Japanese Law Discourse
Takao Tanase
9. Comparative Law and Legal Transplantation in South East Asia
Andrew Harding
10. Marketisation, Public Service and Universal Service
Tony Prosser
11. The Import and Export of Law and Legal Institutions: International Strategies in National Palace Wars
Yves Dezalay and Bryant Garth
12. The Vultures Fly East: The Creation and Globalisation of the Distressed Debt Market
John Flood