Mathias Siems is Professor at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. He has previously taught at Durham University, the University of Edinburgh and the Riga Graduate School of Law. He was also a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard Law School and a Jean Monnet Fellow at the EUI. Po Jen Yap is a professor at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). He graduated from the National University of Singapore with an LLB degree and he obtained LLM qualifications from both Harvard Law School and University College London. He graduated with a PhD degree from the University of Cambridge.

'An exceptionally interesting and innovative contribution to cosmopolitan comparative law. It offers many new perspectives from around the globe, on both traditional and emerging topics, and ranges widely to encompass law in spaces beyond and within the national state, and increasingly standard-based and technical methods of ruling.' David Nelken, Professor of Comparative and Transnational Law at King's College London

• 1. Introduction: a new handbook for comparative law in a global context Mathias Siems and Po Jen Yap; Part I. Methods of Comparative Law: 2. Traditional methods Jaakko Husa; 3. Historical-jurisprudential methods Jean-Louis Halpérin; 4. Critical methods Thomas Coendet; 5. Culture and comparative law methodology Qian Xiangyang; 6. Linguistic approaches Łucja Biel; 7. Qualitative fieldwork Petra Mahy, Richard Mitchell, John Howe, Ingrid Landau and Carolyn Sutherland; 8. New institutional economics Olive Sabiiti; 9. Empirical methods Mathias Siems; 10. Machine-learning methods Han-wei Ho, Patrick Chung-Chia Huang and Yun-chien Chang; Part II. Legal Families and Geographical Comparisons: 11. Civil law Andrea Ortolani; 12. Common law Shivprasad Swaminathan; 13. Confucian legal tradition Ngoc Son Bui; 14.Former Soviet States of Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia Andrey Shirvindt; 15. Latin America Isabel Zuloaga and José Manuel Díaz de Valdés; 16. Middle East and North Africa Radwa Elsaman; 17. South Asia Rehan Abeyratne; 18. Sub-Saharan Africa Charles Manga Fombad; Part III. Central Themes in Comparative Law: 19. The tradition of comparative law: comparison and its colonial legacies Helge Dedek; 20. Decolonial theory and comparative law Roger Merino; 21. Legal transplants: a theoretical framework and a case study from public law Margit Cohn; 22. Legal transplants: a case study of private law in its historical context Gerardo Caffera, Rodrigo Momberg and María Elisa Morales; 23. Convergence and divergence in public law Po Jen Yap; 24. Convergence and divergence in company law Hatice Kübra Kandemir; 25. Law and development Yong-Shik Lee and Andrew Harding; 26. Divided legal systems: understanding legal systems in conflict-prone societies M. Bashir Mobasher and Haroun Rahimi; 27. Legal pluralism and commerce Ada Ordor, Nojeem Amodu and Victor Amadi; Part IV. Comparative Law Beyond the State: 28. Comparative international law Danielle Hanna Rached and Conrado Hubner Mendes; 29. Transnational regulation Victor V. Ramraj; 30. Quantitative forms of legal governance Rene Urueña; 31. Comparative international arbitration law Shahla Ali; 32. Cross-border judicial dialogue Tom Gerald Daly; 33. Comparing regional law Armin Cuyvers; 34. Comparative conflict of laws Yuko Nishitani; 35. Comparative indigenous law Anthony C. Diala; 36. Comparative legal education Tan Cheng-Han, Alan Koh, Topo Santoso, Umakanth Varottil and Jiangyu Wang.