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This paper discusses the relationship between transfer of laws from one country to another and legitimation of the law associated with the transfer. Drawing lessons from the legal transfer experience of Latin America in the 1960s, the paper attempts to ascertain what relevance, if any, legal transfer has in the context of the emerging market economies and democratic societies of the former communist countries of East Europe and the Soviet Union. It is argued that attempts at exporting laws have failed when little or no attempt is made to understand the processes of how law is legitimized within a specific country. The cultural orientation of a particular country or section of society at a particular point in time will determine how legal culture is formed and sustained and will thus affect the degree to which law is legitimized. Drawing on the theoretical discussions of section one, a short case study of law related to rural property rights in Albania is presented in section two.
