The Legitimacy Gap in Borrowed Laws

About the event
As part of the Law, Power and Political Economy seminar series, we are pleased to welcome Dr Amber Darr to discuss her recent paper, ‘The legitimacy gap in borrowed laws’, published in Legal Studies.

The success (or failure) of ‘borrowed’ or ‘transplanted’ laws is largely attributed to the extent of compatibility between them and the contexts of their host countries. This paper draws upon legal philosophy, legal transplant, and new institutional economics literature to argue that while compatibility is both relevant and important, legitimacy is equally – if not more – critical for shaping the extent, quality and direction of enforcement of legal transplants in their adoptive contexts. This is especially true for the more technical economic transplants that are often considered to be context independent. To establish this argument, the paper explores the concept of legitimacy and its relevance for legal transplants; why it may be mistaken for compatibility; and why it is distinct from it. It also compares the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi experience of transplanting modern competition laws to demonstrate how the legitimacy quotient of these economic transplants has impacted their subsequent enforcement.

About the speaker
Dr Darr is a Lecturer in Competition Law at University of Manchester. Her research centres on the diffusion and transfer of competition laws, the institutional design of competition authorities, and the boundaries between competition law and human rights, sustainability, and inequality. Her monograph Competition Law in South Asia: Policy Diffusion and Transfer was published in 2023 by Cambridge University Press. Dr Darr is also a Barrister Lincoln’s Inn and an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and has previously served as the Head of the Legal Department of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan.

Location
Moot Court Room,
Old College
Image credit
Freepik

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Host or Publisher Edinburgh Law School, University of Edinburgh