From the mid-19^th century onwards, many regions underwent fundamental legal changes by taking orientation from Western and especially European models. The extraterritoriality to which countries such as the Ottoman Empire, Japan, China, Siam and Ethiopia were subject, and which they perceived as a challenge to their judicial sovereignty, but also other forms of diplomatic or economic pressure provided the impetus for legal reforms.

The symposium, organized together with the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Theory, offered the participants from Asia, Europe, Australia and the USA a platform for discussions across national borders to gain a better understanding of the cultural translation processes and legal transformations that took place in these spaces under pressure from the Western European powers. Considering a broad scope of different countries and settings facilitated a critical reconception of the globalization of Western European law in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.