Global Patterns of Legal Systems: Notes toward a New Geojurisprudence

Geojurisprudence is concerned with the ways in which laws interrelate with the landscape, because the way in which a society's civil order is structured is reflected in laws and legal systems that leave the impress of sovereign authority on the earth's surface. A geopolitical scheme for the classification of legal systems is necessary in order to prepare a legal map of the world that emphasizes the diffusion of Occidental law. This presentation of global patterns of legal systems is helpful for understanding emerging geopolitical alignments which may be explained on the basis of cultural preadaptation.