The author re-examines in this article the foundations for the traditional classifications of legal systems in comparative legal studies and suggests the usefulness of a kaleidoscopic perception of legal classifications and change, commencing from the revolutions of 1917 down to the present with special reference to the enduring impact on Asian legal systems. China, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Laos, together with Cuba and Ethiopia, are arguably the surviving systems of the socialist legal tradition – few in number but massive in population. Various perspectives are suggested for classifying legal systems. None are regarded as mutually exclusive; that is, a single national legal system may display features of several familial characteristics. A substantial list of possible characteristics of socialist legal systems is given, as is a lengthy enumeration of possible categories of families of legal systems: socialist/totalitarian, technocratic, formalist, transitional, RomanoGermanic, mixed, Slavic, Eurasian, among others.

With respect to Asian socialist legal systems, the article asks whether it is descriptively and analytically more correct to, for example, describe China as a “socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics” or a “Chinese legal system with socialist characteristics”. In either event, or a modification of the juxtaposition, the question remains: what factors make China one or the other? Whatever the answer at any given moment in time, a kaleidoscopic perception of legal change and movement looks less for eternal verities than for constant readjustment, constant re-evaluation of the balance of factors that comprise a legal system, and the development of additional relevant criteria that help identify the forces at work in legal development.

Bibliography

Authored books

1. Abebe S, The Last Post-Cold War Socialist Federation: Ethnicity, Ideology and Democracy in Ethiopia (2014) (in English).

2. Arendt H, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) (in English). 3. Butler W, Basic Documents of the Russian Legal System (1993) (in English).

4. – –, Russian Law and Legal Institutions (2d ed, 2018) (in English).

5. – –, The Mongolian Legal System (1982) (in English).

6. Cruz P, Comparative Law in a Changing World (3d ed, 2007) (in English).

7. Cunliffe B, By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia (2015) (in English).

8. David R, Traité élémentaire de droit civil comparé: introduction à l’étude des droits étrangers et à la méthode comparative (1950) (in Franch).

9. Glenn H, Legal Traditions of the World (5th ed, 2014) (in English).

10. Hazard, Communists and Their Law: A Search for the Common Core of the Legal Systems of the Marxian Socialist States (1969) (in English).

11. Plokhy S, The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (2006) (in English).

12. Quigley J, Soviet Legal Innovation and the Law of the Western World (2007) (in English).

13. Schlesinger Rudolf Berthold, Formation of Contracts: A Study of the Common Core of Legal Systems (1968) (in English).

14. Sigel F, Lectures on Slavonic Law (1902) (in English).

15. Alekseev S, Teorija prava [Theory of Law] (1993) (in Russian).

16. Chirkin V, Osnovy sravnitel’nogo pravovedenija [Foundations of Comparative Law] (2014) (in Russian).

17. Luts L, Suchasni pravovi systemy svitu [Contemporary Legal Systems of the World] (2003) (in Ukrainian).

18. Maciejowski W, Istorija slavjanskih zakonodatel’stv [History of Slavonic Legislation] (1958) (in Russian).

19. Marchenko M, Sravnitel’noe pravovedenie [Comparative Law] (2001) (in Russian).

20. Papian R, Hristianskie korni sovremennogo prava [Christian Roots of Contemporary Law] (2002) (in Russian).

21. Riazanov M, Slov’ianske pravo i slov’ianska pravova kultura: zahalnoteoretychnyi aspekt [Slavonic Law and Slavonic Legal Culture: Fundamental Theoretical Aspect] (2013) (in Ukrainian). 22. Siniukov V, Rossijskaja pravovaja sistema: vvedenie v obshhuju teoriju [Russian Legal System: Introduction to General Theory] (2d ed, 2010) (in Russian).

23. Ziubanov Iu, Hristianskie osnovy ugolovnogo kodeksa Rossijskoj Federacii [Christian Foundations of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation] (2007) (in Russian).

Edited and translated books

24. ‘The Chinese Soviet Republic in the Family of Socialist Legal Systems’ in Butler W (ed), The Legal System of the Chinese Soviet Republic (1983) (in English)

25. Barry D and Ginsburgs G and Maggs P, Soviet Law After Stalin (1977-1979) 3 vols (in English).

26. Bassin M and Glebov S and Laruelle M (eds), Between Europe and Asia: The Origins, Theories, and Legacies of Russian Eurasianism (2015) (in English).

27. Butler W (ed and transl), Civil Code of the Russian Federation (2016) (in English).

28. Butler W (ed and transl), Civil Code of Ukraine and Law of Ukraine on Private International Law (2011) (in English).

29. Butler W (ed), The Legal System of the Chinese Soviet Republic (1983) (in English). 30. Cohen J, ‘Introduction to Part V’, in Gillespie J and Chen A H. Y., Legal Reforms in China and Vietnam: A Comparison of Asian Communist Regimes (2010) (in English).

31. Hazard J, Butler W and Maggs P, The Soviet Legal System (3d ed, 1977) (in English).

32. Il’in, On the Essence of Legal Consciousness (ed W Butler and P Grier (2014) (in English).

33. Kharitonov E and Kharitonova O, ‘Classification of European Systems of Private Law’ in Butler W and Kresin O and Shemshuchenko Iu (eds), Foundations of Comparative Law: Methods and Typologies (2011) (in English).

34. Kharytonov E and Kharytonova O, ‘From Comprehension of the Reception of Roman Law to a General Theory of the Interaction of Legal Systems: Raising the Issue’ in Butler W and Kresin O (eds), The Interaction of Legal Systems: Post-Soviet Approaches (2015) (in English).

35. Koziubra M, ‘The Legal System of Ukraine: Quest for Identity’ in Butler W and Kresin O (eds), The Interaction of Legal Systems: Post-Soviet Approaches (2015) (in English).

36. Kurkchiyan M and Kubal A (eds), A Sociology of Justice in Russia (2018) (in English).

37. Luigi Sturzo (1871-1959), Italy and Fascismo (Barclay Carter B trans, 1926) (in English).

38. Lukianov D, ‘Religious Legal Systems: Features and Classifications’ in Butler W and Kresin O and Shemshuchenko Iu (eds), Foundations of Comparative Law: Methods and Typologies (2011) (in English).

39. Maciejowski, Slavische Rechtsgesichte (transl, 1835-1839) 4 vols (in German).

40. Örücü Esin, ‘What is a Mixed Legal System? Exclusion or Expansion?’ in Örücü (ed), Mixed Legal Systems at New Frontiers (2010) (in English).

41. Russian Public Law (3d ed, 2013) (in English).

42. Saidov A, Comparative Law (Butler W transl, 2000) (in English).

43. Shaping a Market-Economy Legal System: A Report of the EC/IS Joint Task Force on Law Reform in the Independent States (1993) (in English).

44. Tatsyi V and Petryshyn O (ed), Ukrainian Legal Doctrine (Butler W English version transl and ed, 2015) (in English). 45. Wigmore J, Panorama of the World’s Legal Systems (Library ed, 1936) (in English).

46. Zweigert K and Kötz H, An Introduction to Comparative Law (Weir T transl, 3d ed, 1998) (in English).

47. Lafitskii V (ed), Sravnitel’noe pravovedenie: nacional’nye pravovye sistemy [Comparative Law: National Legal Systems] (2012) (in Russian).

48. Lafitskii V, Sravnitel’noe pravovedenie v obrazah prava [Comparative Jurisprudence in the Images of Law] (2010-2011) (in Russian).

49. Lisitsa Iu (ed), I Il’in, Sochinenija v dvuh tomah [I Il’in Works in Two Volumes] (1993) (in Russian).

50. Porivnialne pravoznavstvo [Comparative Jurisprudence] (2003) (in Ukrainian).

51. Pravovye sistemy mira [Legal Systems of the World] (2001) (in Russian).

52. Tikhomirov Iu, Kurs sravnitel’nogo pravovedenija [Cours of Comparative Law] (1996) (in  Russian).

53. Trubetskoi N, Evrazijstvo. Izbrannoe [Eurasianism. Selected Works] (2015) (in Russian).

54. Vlasov V, Vlasova G and Denisenko S, Sravnitel’noe pravovedenie [Comparative Law] (2014) (in Russian).

Journal articles

55. Berman H, ‘What Makes Socialist Law Socialist?’ (1971) 5 Problems of Communism, XX 24-30 (in English).

56. Butler W, ‘China in the Family of Socialist Legal Systems’ (1980) 91 (July/August) China Now 11-4 (in English).

57. Chamberlain L, ‘New Eurasians’ Times Literary Supplemen (15 September 2015) 14 (in English).

58. Damirli M, ‘Comparative-Legal Science in Ukraine: Theoretical-Methodological Traditions’ (2013) VIII Journal of Comparative Law 1-44 (in English).

59. Ehrenzweig, ‘Communists and Their Law’ (1969, 1970) LVIII California Law Review 1007 (in English).

60. Newton S, ‘The Constitutional Systems of the Independent Central Asian States: A Contextual Analysis (2017)’ (2018) XIII Journal of Comparative Law 223-32 (in English).