Disputes and Differences: Comparisons in Law, Language and History

Thirty-eight papers written over fifty years show that anyone who wants to understand law can benefit from the insights of linguistics, history and anthropology. Equally important are the techniques of other disciplines, particularly the comparative method. In Part 1 the emphases are on law reform, human rights and peace, protection of the environment, and the relations between customary law and introduced state law. Part 2 illustrates a conviction that the study of language can illuminate legal problems. It combines historical researches, intended to explode the dangerous myth that the English common law can be transacted only in the English language, with justifications of, reports on and analyses of the creation of a Chinese Digest of the common law in Hong Kong. Part 3 tries to discover, describe and understand the historical development of methods of managing disputes. Part 4 makes suggestions about the relation of theory to practice.