Abstract:Since the 1990s, due to the inherent limitations of normative comparison, the lack of value-free functional comparison, and the excessive deconstruction of cultural comparison, modern comparative law has fallen into an academic recession. Criticized for being overly instrumental, utilitarian and fragmented, the comparative legal community has attached more importance to comparative methods than to comparative principles. In the 21st Century, contemporary comparative law has shown substantive changes in research methods, academic purports, discipline orientations, research modals, and leading topics. As a representative frontier field of contemporary comparative law, foreign-aid comparative law rose and fell in the 1960s and 1970s, revived in the 1990s, and is thriving in the contemporary era. By taking an empirical analysis based on the core concept of “legal transplant”, the academic landscape of today’s foreign-aid comparative law can be vividly shown.In terms of the transplant positions, traditional comparative legal scholars tend to hold affirmative, negative, and skeptic attitudes towards legal transplant. In comparison, the optimistic attitudes of foreign-aid comparative legal scholars towards legal transplant can be divided into three positions, including modernization-oriented legal evolution, means-oriented legal instrumentalization, and culture-led legal enlightenment, thus leading to wholesale, retail, customized, and ranking legal transplant strategies respectively.In terms of transplant objects, foreign-aid comparative legal scholars generally prefer to adopt the system theory of law and manage to introduce quantitative legal description on the basis of qualitative legal interpretation. Under the guidance of national legal pluralism, the transplant objects of foreign-aid comparative law mainly include the transplant of legal rules at the substantive and procedural levels, the transplant of legal institutions at the implementation level, and the transplant of legal culture by means of profession-oriented legal education and training.In terms of transplant motivations, foreign-aid comparative legal scholars mostly hold a utilitarian mentality of legal transplant, that is, a self-seclusion strategy of legal development will deprive a country of the opportunity for legal modernization. No matter what type of legal transplant strategy is to be adopted, factors such as efficiency, pressure, investment, and reputation must be taken into consideration. In practice, the transplant motivations are diverse and complex.In terms of transplant standards, foreign-aid comparative legal scholars are gradually concerned about developing internal standards for legal transplant to safeguard the interests of transplant countries from the perspectives of “national domestic needs” and “people’s interests first”, thus avoiding legal colonialism inherent in external standards. At the same time, foreign-aid comparative legal scholars also proceed to put a premium on the social context and demand side of legal transplant by adopting a participant’s perspective.In a nutshell, foreign-aid comparative law is a scholarly field based on rich practice of legal assistance and a countermeasures study strongly driven by the legal assistance industry. Nevertheless, its outstanding practical character cannot guarantee that it can truly establish inclusive comparative principles of law in line with the interests of recipient countries.This article has four intellectual innovations first, situating the study of comparative law in the contemporary scholarly context based on the modern comparative legal tradition, thus revealing one of the most representative academic branches of the contemporary comparative law from the perspective of international legal assistance. Second, fleshing out the conception of legal transplant by integrating institutional export, cultural infiltration, and capacity building together, thus taking reform-oriented legal transplant as the main thread running through the paper. Third, systematically unfolding the scholarly evolution of the foreign-aid comparative law from four perspectives, including transplant positions, transplant objects, transplant motivations, and transplant standards. Fourth, envisioning the academic character of the foreign-aid comparative law, with a special focus on its internal tension between practical character and inclusive character.
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