Early in her book, Professor Lan Cao asserts the provocative proposition to the legalist: “law is peripheral, not central, to the development objectives.” Cao stresses that the dominance of the “rule of law”, associated with the narrow technocratic framework of economic development, edges out important cultural considerations that shape the process of development and “the means that law and development employ … remain rooted in a standard menu of law, law, and more law”.

After the modernization theory influenced the “first wave” of law and development of the 1960s and 1970s, the “second wave” spanning the 1980s to the present has focused on the reform of formal institutions and rules with more empirical inquiry, which Professor Trubek recently remarked as characterized as contextualization, fragmentation, and hegemony of the Global North. Against this background, this book highlights the fundamental challenges law and development projects pose for legal scholars and practitioners, from a viewpoint of the expanded development paradigm aiming for universal values such as human freedom and capability coupled with a dynamic understanding of culture.

Based on the interdisciplinary analysis drawing from international law, international relations, economics, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy, the author asserts that law and development cannot remain in cultural relativism or cultural traditions but requires the adoption of certain political and economic choices, in which cultural consideration is embedded and inevitable. The author illustrates this important proposition so that we may acknowledge the interdependency of the silos in law and society, with rigorous case-studies of a wide range of development scenarios from countries with plural backgrounds. Through this theoretical and practical analysis, the book provides a significant contribution to the holistic and interdisciplinary understanding of law and development from a viewpoint of culture.

There are a few points that may call for further examination. Though the author contends that “people have the freedom to choose anti-efficiency norms if that freedom is undergirded by an inclusive and informed decision-making process”, it is acknowledged that those democratic and collective decisions may not necessarily protect the dignity and rights of minorities in society. In this context, even though the author takes the Meiji Restoration and post-war Japan as a successful case of cultural change, this development, driven by a strong nationalism forged by pressure on national security in pursuit of state-centric economic interests, did not directly improve the rights of disadvantaged persons. Furthermore, current competitive global market economies transform traditional cultures at extraordinary speeds and with too much technical complexity for affected people to make an informed decision. Last, the author's limitation of the scope of the project to developing countries may be too narrow, in the light of the 2030 UN Development Agenda which endorses that development concerns all countries and diverse subjects based on a human rights approach. This trend would be essential for both scholars and practitioners to note, in order to break down the “hegemony” of the field and ensure that all stakeholders can collaborate as equal partners in the area of law and development.