ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how Harold J. Berman’s idea of a Western legal tradition (WLT) arises from his 1950 book Justice in Russia and that the idea is a mirror-image of another projection: the legal tradition of Soviet Russia. The WLT grew from another legacy received from the Cold War era: human rights history. The chapter shows the philosophical premise upon which his historical project is based, to be found in his university mentor Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. It demonstrates that the question of human rights history is the main building block of the WLT and the idea of the ‘Eastern tradition’ without human rights served as a convenient context. Berman’s Justice in Russia: An Interpretation of Soviet Law was written to offer a key to make sense of Soviet Russia. During the Iron Curtain era, Soviet Russia was beyond the reach of Westerners: mysterious, distant as an ancient civilisation, and felt to be in dramatic opposition to the West.
