Envisioning a Global Legal Culture

To encourage all, but particularly U.S., lawyers to think about transformation of the law, this Article will envision a global legal regime. The purpose is more reflective than predictive. Nominally, the Article has three parts. The first Part offers an overview description of the emerging supranational legal institutions and the major forces moving them. The next Part will outline civil law legal concepts and provide background for common law readers. To further the goal of this Article, it will do so as it suggests some issues that will arise as the civil law system is incorporated into the global legal system. The last Part will move to the Article’s major goal of setting up a framework for contemplating the basis on which a global legal culture might evolve, to some extent, on the merger of this globalized version of civil law thinking with U.S. common law thinking. Some effort is made to suggest how other major legal cultures may impact on this system but with the recognition that thinking about the interaction of the two major transatlantic systems is sufficiently ambitious for one Article.