1st Edition
Law, Culture and Identity in Central and Eastern Europe A Comparative Engagement
Combining insights from comparative legal theory, jurisprudence and legal history, this collection examines the legal and constitutional identity of Central and Eastern Europe.
Although the various countries of Central and Eastern Europe have often compared themselves to the West, the failure of these countries to engage with one another has resulted in a whole spectrum of legal identities remaining hidden. This book takes up a comparison of such identities within the region of Central and Eastern Europe, and following from the prima facie similarity between the region’s countries, given the experience of communism and legal transfers. The book thereby illuminates, through comparisons, the distinct legal identities of the 16 Central and Eastern European states; whilst, at the same time, arguing for a shared Central and Eastern European legal identity.
This book will appeal to scholars and students in the area of comparative law, as well as lawyers, political scientists, sociologists, and historians with particular interests in Central and Eastern Europe.
Introduction. Central and Eastern Europe Between Law, Culture, Identity and Comparison
Cosmin Cercel, Alexandra Mercescu and Mirosław Michał Sadowski
Part I. Central and Eastern European Legal Cultures: Theorerical Perspectives
1. Foreign Law, the Comparatist, and Culture: How It Is
Pierre Legrand
2. Central Europe: What’s in a Name? Forging an Understanding of the Region as a Socio-Legal and a Socio-Political Space
Mirosław Michał Sadowski
3. The Region Without Qualities: Fiction, International Law and the Internalised Irrelevance of Central and Eastern Europe
Momchil Milanov
4. Judicial Formalism and Regional Legal Identity in Central and Eastern Europe
Péter Cserne
5. Non-compliance with the European Court of Human Rights Judgments: Delineating the Features of Central and Eastern European Legal Identity
Donatas Murauskas
6. Old Patterns Die Hard – The Idiosyncrasies of the Yugoslav Socialist Legal Tradition and the Problem of Continuity in the Western Balkans
Denis Preshova and Nenad Markovikj
7. Constitutional Identity as Competing Historically Driven Narratives: Central and European Perspectives
Manuel Guțan
Part II. Central and Eastern European Legal Cultures: Case Studies
8. Eternity Clause as Agalma: Articulating Constitutional Identity in Romania and Latvia
Cosmin Cercel and Jānis Pleps
9. An Ancestry of Bridges: The Persistence of Legal Transplants in Croatia and Poland
Hano Ernst, Mirosław Sadowski and Mirosław Michał Sadowski
10. The External influence on Constitutional Identity: Comparing Estonia and Serbia
Katre Luhamaa, Merike Ristikivi and Marija Vlajković
11. Historical Trajectories and Shared Destiny as a Basis for Common Legal Identity: The Cases of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro
Samir Forić, Marko Dokić and Danijela Vuković-Ćalasan
12. The Ever-Blurred Features of the Rule of Law: Albania and Bulgaria
Rezarta Demneri and Anastas Punev
13. The Transfer of the Principle of Proportionality to the National Legal Order: The Cases of the Slovak Republic and Slovenia
Tomáš Gábriš, Matej Horvat and Marko Novak
14. Guarantees for Linguistic Identity: Approaches of the Republic of Lithuania and of the Republic of Moldova
Aistė Račkauskaitė-Burneikienė, Saulius Katuoka and Teodor Papuc
15. Searching for Legal Identities through Narratives about the Habsburg Times: Czechia and Hungary
Markéta Štěpáníková and Márton Matyasovszky-Németh
Afterword. A Central and Eastern European Legal Culture?
Cosmin Cercel, Alexandra Mercescu and Mirosław Michał Sadowski
Biography
Cosmin Cercel is Associate Professor in Law at Lazarski University in Warsaw, Poland.
Alexandra Mercescu is Assistant Professor at the West University of Timisoara, Romania.
Mirosław Michał Sadowski is Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland; Affiliated Researcher at the Centre for Global Studies, Alberta University in Lisbon, Portugal; Postdoctoral Researcher at CEBRAP – Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning in São Paulo, Brazil; Research Assistant at the Institute of Legal Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland.
