Comparative Legal Studies, Society and Justice

Empirical and theoretical analyses of law, both substantive and procedural, in comparative perspective with a focus on the Global South

• Promotes comparative legal studies as a distinctive approach that uses analysis of law—its creation, implementation, enforcement and legal consciousness —to create impact and improve the human condition
• Expands the boundaries of comparative legal studies by encompassing analysis of underdeveloped topics such as processes of dispute resolution
• Encourages studies based on the work of scholars who do not currently occupy a prominent status in the comparative legal studies field, such as Stuart Hampshire, Philip Gulliver, Simon Roberts, Hannah Arendt, Gayle S. Rubin, Judith Butler and Marilyn Strathern among others
• Draws on the experiences of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America as well as fully taking into account more established/orthodox concerns and coverage
• Welcomes various methodologies and research methods, with a preference for empirical studies which also offer conceptual innovation and theoretical impact
• Brings together sociology, social and cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, psychology, linguistics, medicine, geography, politics, institutional economics and finance, philosophy and development studies to foster an interdisciplinary perspective
• Topics include, but are not limited to, dispute resolution, social relations (including community and family relations), social movements and civil society, reproduction and health, migration, gender and sexuality, children’s rights, data protection, digital law, commercial law reform, consumer welfare, environmental welfare, constitutions and comparative international law

Comparative Legal Studies, Society and Justice provides powerful and path-breaking critical and empirical comparative analyses of law, legal processes and legal institutions.

Fostering comparative legal studies as a distinct approach that moves beyond more formalist perspectives on comparative law, the Series is intended to generate innovative ideas about law reform, the nature of law and how law should be practised, legal process, the status and role of civil society and how legal and institutional reform might better enhance social justice. 

With an emphasis on the Global South, the Series creates a space for theoretical, empirical, and interdisciplinary conversations on how legal cultures theorize, (re)produce, and implement law. It invites accessible and ground-breaking proposals that aim, with their analysis, to foster meaningful reform.

Write for the Series

• We are seeking proposals for monographs and edited collections between 80,000-100,000 words
• Find out more about publishing with us and read our general proposal guidelines
• Ready to get in touch? Contact series editors Maria Moscati, Michael Palmer and Ling Zhou. For general submission questions, get in touch with Edinburgh University Press Commissioning Editor Laura Quinn

Advisory Board

• Femi Amao, Professor of Company Law & Sustainability at University College Cork, Ireland
• Sarah Biddulph, Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne
• Joseph Conti, Associate Professor of Sociology and Law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Lynette J Chua, Professor of Law and Vice Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore
• Baudouin Dupret, Research Director at CNRS, Institute Les Afriques dans le Monde (LAM), Institut d’études politiques de Bordeaux (IEP Bordeaux, France)
• Fu Hualing, Professor of Law and Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong
• Kalpana Kannabiran, Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi
• Anna Gelpern, Professor of Law and the Agnes N. Williams Research Professor at Georgetown Law
• Simone Glanert, Reader in Law at the University of Kent
• Michele Graziadei, Full Professor of Comparative Private Law at the University of Torino, Italy
• Jill Hunter, Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales, Australia
• Chulwoo Lee, Professor of Law at Yonsei University
• Pierre Legrand, Professor, Ecole de droit de la Sorbonne
• Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Distinguished and Chancellor's Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine
• Ambreena Manji, Professor of Law at the University of Cardiff
• Kaori H. Okano, Professor of Asian Studies and Japanese at La Trobe University
• Arzoo Osanloo, Professor in the Department of Law, Societies, and Justice and the Director of the Middle East Center, University of Washington
• Fernanda Pirie, Professor of the Anthropology of Law at the University of Oxford
• Maya Unnithan, Professor of Social and Medical Anthropology at the University of Sussex
• XI Chao, Professor and Dean at the Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong