Preface

This present book is part of an ongoing and open-ended collaborative research project among a number of European universities and research partners in developing countries and coordinated by the Law and Development Research Group at the University of Antwerp. The intention of the project is to complement the current book with a number of case studies based on field research, using the methodology and building on the findings presented in the present volume.

As part of the project an inaugural expert seminar was organised in April 2007. This was followed by an international conference at Antwerp University in October 2008. The conference included a call for papers identifying the research questions referred to in the ‘Introduction’. Initial drafts of some of the chapters included were presented at the Antwerp conference. Subsequently the editors engaged in an intensive dialogue with the authors on their papers, and also invited additional authors to contribute to the book on themes not originally covered.