Gregory Shaffer (University of Minnesota)

Hadi N Deeb (University of California, Los Angeles)
Liora Israel (Ecoles des hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris)
Joseph Margulies (Northwestern University)
Victoria Nourse (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

This panel takes up the New Legal Realist question of what happens when we try to translate law across the boundaries of different disciplines, institutions, and/or cultures. The field of law-and-society has studied legal processes for a long time, and yet much of its wisdom has not been understood by those in the field of law itself. In parallel fashion, scholars from different societies have examined similar legal processes and institutions but have yet to develop a shared framework for comparing these institutions. Even within one society or legal system, we need to develop frameworks for understanding processes of institution-level translation, as when legislators or judges work across interpretive boundaries. And at a global level, transnational institutions seek to translate across different societies and cultures yet often fail. The presenters in this panel examine barriers to translation across these boundaries, and suggest ways of overcoming them.