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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Mapping law: a naïve model of diffusion
Renewing initiatives stand as a starting point. They bring new needs and new satisfactions to the world, then spread or tend to do so through forced or spontaneous, chosen or unconscious, quick or slow imitation, always responding to a regular pace, as a light wave or a family of termites.
(Gabriel Tarde 1979, p. 3)In my early years of teaching in Khartoum in the late 1950s, I used to teach a first year course called ‘Introduction to Law’. In order to set a context for the study of the Sudan Legal System, I began by presenting my students with a map of law in the world as a whole. This map suggested that almost every country belonged either to the common or civil law family. It indicated that some civil law countries were socialist (this was the period of the Cold War) and that many countries, mainly colonies and ex-colonies, recognised religious and customary law for limited purposes, mainly in respect of personal law, such as family and inheritance.
This simple map served a useful purpose in setting a broad context for the study of Sudanese law, in interpreting legal patterns in Cold War terms, and especially in emphasising the impact of colonialism on the diffusion of law. It explained, but did not purport to justify, why we were mainly studying English-based law.
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