Contrarian Jurists

Of all the sub-disciplines in legal study none is more disputed and disputatious with regard to its nature and purposes than comparative law. The approaches and the controversies have multiplied with the expansion of the subject to the point where this book is extremely timely. We have a plethora of different approaches and contexts, scholars with different purposes as well as fields of endeavour. As the most knowledgeable and accomplished of contemporary comparative law scholars, Jaakko Husa is especially qualified to confront in this book the problem of ‘Contrarian Jurists’, as he calls them. It is hard to think of anyone with his degree of compendious knowledge and wisdom of perspective to make sense of the patchwork quilt, as he calls it, of comparative law through its deep disagreements, and point the way to a pluralist future. * Andrew Harding, National University of Singapore and University of Oxford *
Jaakko Husa is one of the most original and groundbreaking voices in contemporary comparative law, and Contrarian Jurists fully confirms the distinctive intellectual force of his scholarship. With exceptional clarity, sophistication, and intellectual depth, Husa leads the reader, chapter by chapter, through the major transformations that have shaped comparative law, showing how contrarianism has been not merely a recurring feature of the field but one of the forces driving its development. What emerges is a rich and compelling account of comparative law as a discipline animated by disagreement, shaped by clashes, contestation, and creative dissent, and enriched by the diversity and polycentrism that define it today. This is a brilliant, innovative, and deeply important book, a major contribution to contemporary comparative legal scholarship. * Antonia Baraggia, University of Milan *
Of all the sub-disciplines in legal study none is more disputed and disputatious with regard to its nature and purposes than comparative law. The approaches and the controversies have multiplied with the expansion of the subject to the point where this book is extremely timely. We have a plethora of different approaches and contexts, scholars with different purposes as well as fields of endeavour. As the most knowledgeable and accomplished of contemporary comparative law scholars, Jaakko Husa is especially qualified to confront in this book the problem of ‘Contrarian Jurists’, as he calls them. It is hard to think of anyone with his degree of compendious knowledge and wisdom of perspective to make sense of the patchwork quilt, as he calls it, of comparative law through its deep disagreements, and point the way to a pluralist future. * Andrew Harding, National University of Singapore and University of Oxford *
Jaakko Husa is one of the most original and groundbreaking voices in contemporary comparative law, and Contrarian Jurists fully confirms the distinctive intellectual force of his scholarship. With exceptional clarity, sophistication, and intellectual depth, Husa leads the reader, chapter by chapter, through the major transformations that have shaped comparative law, showing how contrarianism has been not merely a recurring feature of the field but one of the forces driving its development. What emerges is a rich and compelling account of comparative law as a discipline animated by disagreement, shaped by clashes, contestation, and creative dissent, and enriched by the diversity and polycentrism that define it today. This is a brilliant, innovative, and deeply important book, a major contribution to contemporary comparative legal scholarship. * Antonia Baraggia, University of Milan *