MIXED AND MIXING SYSTEMS WORLDWIDE: A PREFACE

This issue of the Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal (South Africa) sees thepublication of a selection of articles derived from the Third International Congress ofthe World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists (WSMJJ). That Congress was held atthe Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel in the summer of 2011. It reflected athriving Society consolidating its core scholarship on classical mixed jurisdictions(Israel, Louisiana, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Quebec, Scotland, and South Africa)while reaching to new horizons (including Cyprus, Hong Kong and Macau, Malta,Nepal, etc). This publication reflects in microcosm the complexity of contemporaryscholarship on mixed and plural legal systems. This complexity is, of course, wellunderstoodby South African jurists whose system is derived both from the dominantEuropean traditions as well as from African customary systems, including both thosethat make up part of the official law of the state as well as those non-state norms thatcontinue to be important in the daily lives of many South Africans.