By Sean D. Yates
Introduction
Comparative lawyers have for over a century examined the ways different legal orders organize their laws. They have observed how law travels, how rather than reinvent the wheel, lawmakers will often copy or borrow legal ideas from another place (or time) and use it themselves. Law, however, doesn’t always fit. That is, it doesn’t always do what it is supposed to do. It may fail to achieve its intended purpose, may do better than expected, or may end up fulfilling an unintended purpose. Comparatists have also therefore highlighted the importance of the social context from which law is taken and into which it is placed, and how the transplanting exercise inevitably results in the law in question undergoing a transformation. It is no longer the same law because it operates differently in a different social context.
