ABSTRACT
In this chapter I present an overview of the field of law and development, through a brief account of its evolution as a tool of U.S. state foreign policy in the 1950s and 1960s, through its deconstruction in the 1970s and 1980s and mainstream revitalisation since the 1990s. Having established the contours of law and development as a subfield of socio-legal scholarship generally, the second part of the chapter will introduce my own research about the role of transnational forms of law in relation to extractive (i.e., mining) development in Mongolia. It will particularly reflect on the way that critical ‘law in development’ commitments shaped my research questions and methodological choices. I will also reflect on some of the ethical dimensions of doing research in the name of law and development. The chapter concludes with a reflection about how law’s transnational and global character introduces new dimensions of enquiry to the field of law and development, as well as a caution against emerging forms of global legal instrumentalism in relation to development.
