Costa and Zolo share the conviction that a proper understanding of the rule of law today requires referring to a global problematic horizon. It seems unavoidable to investigate into the relationship between Europe and the United States, on the one hand, and the 'rest' of the world, on the other. Over the last centuries this relationship developed in terms of conquest and colonisation, on the widespread view that Western 'civilisation' should be opposed as a whole to 'barbaric' others. Today, however, the notion of rule of law is still rousing a debate that cannot be said to have come to an end. The reason is quite simple: if the origins of the rule of law are in 'Western' societies and cultures, and if until recently the West took the lion's share in the debate on our subject matter, it remains true that today other societies and other cultures take an active and creative part into a sustained philosophical-political debate. This is by no means a merely intellectual or academic question: the Arab-Islamic world, India, China, are not far away planets whose orbits never crossed the European and American West. On the contrary, in fairly recent times the encounters have been close and traumatic.

In sum, the book intends to offer some relevant guides for orienting the reader through a political and legal debate where the rule of law (and the doctrine of 'human rights') is a concept both controversial and significant at the national and international levels.

Inhalt
Introductory Essays.- The Rule of Law: A Critical Reappraisal.- The Rule of Law: A Historical Introduction.- The Rule of Law in Europe and The United States.- The Rule of Law and the Liberties of the English: The Interpretation of Albert Venn Dicey.- Popular Sovereignty, the Rule of Law, and the Rule of Judges in the United States.- Rechtsstaat and Individual Rights in German Constitutional History.- État de Droit and National Sovereignty in France.- Rechtsstaat and Constitutional Justice in Austria: Hans Kelsen's Contribution.- The Contemporary Debate.- The Past and the Future of the Rule of Law.- Beyond the Rule of Law: Judges' Tyranny or Lawyers' Anarchy?.- The Rule of Law and Gender Difference.- Machiavelli, the Republican Tradition, and the Rule of Law.- Leoni's and Hayek's Critique of the Rule of Law in Continental Europe.- The Rule of Law and Colonialism.- The Rule of Law and the Legal Treatment of Native Americans.- The Colonial Model of the Rule of Law in Africa: The Example of Guinea.- The Rule of Law in Islam.- Is Constitutionalism Compatible with Islam?.- The Rule of Morally Constrained Law: The Case of Contemporary Egypt.- The Rule of Law and Oriental Cultures.- Asian Values and the Rule of Law.- The Rule of Law and Indian Society: From Colonialism to Post-Colonialism.- The Chinese Legal Tradition and the European View of the Rule of Law.- Modern Constitutionalism in China.- Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Contemporary China.