This special issue includes a selection of papers first presented at the workshop convened by David Nelken and Mathias Siems on the Legitimacy of Global Social Indicators, held at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College, London, on 14–15 March 2016. To complete the issue, we have also included some reflections on significant and relevant socio-legal books that should be of interest to our readers, namely, Boa Santos’ Toward a New Legal Common Sense (2002) and Eve Darian-Smith’s Laws and Societies in Global Contexts (2013) presented as part of the Anatomy of a Book series at the Transnational Law Summer Institute (convened by Peer Zumbansen and Prabha Kotiswaran), held at King's in June 2015.