This course will seek to introduce students to some of the characteristic features of the post-communist world, to some of its difficulties, problems, challenges and triumphs; and to similarities and differences among the developments in post-communist societies. In particular law students will focus on the attempts to build and rebuild legal institutions to replace or transform those which were inherited from communism, and of the problems and prospects facing such attempts. Among the particular issues discussed are the prerequisites for establishing the rule of law after its prolonged absence, the role of constitutions and constitutional courts, the legal requirements for, and problems associated with, privatizing an economy which long had no private property, the legal impact of the legal standards of the European Union on any countries that want to join it and must satisfy those standards, the moral and legal problems associated with attempts to deal with the legacies of an unsavoury past. These latter problems include questions about the present role of former communists and informers of communist secret services. They also include questions of criminal justice in relation to war crimes and crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia.