The course introduces and analyzes comparative law in a global perspective, providing students with an overview of the most important legal traditions of the world. The first part of the course focuses on the meaning of comparative law and introduces basic concepts, such as those of legal traditions, legal transplants and legal pluralism, considering legal globalization as one of the most important developments for contemporary legal studies. The second part deals with the core of the Western legal traditions analyzing the Common law & Civil law archetypical divide. It also analyses mixed legal systems, their distinctive traits and growing importance for comparative legal studies. The meaning of democracy and human rights as Western or universal values is investigated as well in this part of the course. The third cycle broadens the course’s comparative spectrum to some of the most important non-Western/non-European legal traditions (Sub-Saharan, East-Asian, Talmudic, Islamic and Latin American) and questions the possible reconciliation of legal diversity on a global scale.