Legal pluralism

As legal pluralism refers to the coexistence of two or more systems of law or legal traditions within a social field. Typical cases of legal pluralism can be found in particular in countries where religious normative systems, such as the Shari'a, play a strong role in the (former) colonies in which the introduced by the colonial power law traditional normative systems has never really displaced. In recent times, it is assumed that a kind of legal pluralism in the context of global standard systems such as the Lex mercatoria.

Differences will be a strong legal pluralism, in which the coexisting legal systems must not enjoy official recognition, but can be purely social phenomena. In addition, the weak legal pluralism refers to the coexistence state-approved - or universalistic norms appropriate - legal systems.

The theory of legal pluralism is attributed to the legal sociologist Eugen Ehrlich, with the " living law " of Bukovina, a kind of rural customary law within Austria -Hungary was occupied. It was further developed by the Legal anthropologists Leopold Pospisil.