ABSTRACT
The process of legal postmodernization is a confronting one for traditional analytical jurisprudence, and suggests the need to revise its investigation of the nature of law in contemporary societies. Any account of the changed nature of contemporary law necessarily contains implications both for the conduct of future legal scholarship and for the reform of law and legal institutions. In particular, the emergent legal landscape raises the question as to whether the traditional conceptual frameworks and vocabularies of legal theory are capable of adequately addressing developments. Contemporary legal frameworks of indigenous law within national legal systems owe as much to international human rights law as they do to traditional customary norms. The embrace of capitalist economic forms by Asian nations also appears to undermine the Weberian linkage between the rise of capitalism and the appearance of formal legal rationality. Normative legal theory is confronted by special challenges in light of the new paradigm.
