Introduction: Convergence and Divergence in Times of Crisis

While legal harmonisation/convergence is considered to be one of the most influential theses in the discipline of law, the law of harmonisation is full of paradoxes. On the one hand, legal borrowing is commonplace, leading to a phenomenon of convergence; on the other hand, it is widely accepted that legal systems are not converging. Legal convergence is not a new concept. However, as the twenty-first century unfolds, individual nations’ affairs, news, and problems increasingly reach and captivate global audiences. During the last few decades, the internationalisation and transnationalisation of law have reached unprecedented levels. Due to its ability to bring cultures and laws together, globalisation has facilitated legal transplants as law makers have resorted to the use foreign legal models. In spite of this, wars, ideological conflicts, divergent national interests, and cultural clashes have led to some resistance to legal convergence. As a result, the legal world remains fragmented and governed by many different regimes. Therefore, the question of whether legal systems are converging or diverging remains unanswered. This book inserts itself in this intellectual odyssey of the concepts of legal convergence and legal pluralism. It contributes to the rich comparative law and legal transplants literature by examining legal convergence through the prism of contemporary crises. This book attempts to determine whether, in times of crisis, foreign laws, rules, and concepts can transcend countries’ levels of maturity and branches of law, or whether states’ responses to crises lead to legal divergence and disintegration. In doing so, the book investigates whether policy and legal responses from Russia to Germany and from bankruptcy law to environmental law, have adopted or copied features, policies, principles and/or rules of other legal systems or international standards (convergence) or rather, have departed from existing legal norms, or adopted dissimilar policies and rules (divergence), as a result of crises.