Legal can be a funny word

There will always be competing systems made up of competing institutions. The trick is to provide the most popular, most accessible and most respected “default” system, which most local people prefer AS WELL AS can easily enter and easily use (and yes, inevitably abuse once in a while).

In certain places and at certain times, the default system is not the legal system.

The legal system in certain places is in fact so complicated, obtuse, and elitist, that not only the foreign but the local inmates—sorry, inhabitants, forgo system access and simply engage in and sustain non-legal systems. In places like these, inhabitants and interlocutors tend to pay more bribes than taxes.

Also, in certain times, the legal system withers away. For example, during revolutions or wars, individual survival usually supplants the more group-oriented idea of a system. When a situation is lawless, there’s no point in pretending to adhere to a legal system.

“Legal”, for most of us, reflects a local “real time” value. That’s part of why the foreigner is usually required to submit to the immediate local legal (or sometimes non-legal) system, rather than the other way round.

One could almost think of “Legal” like one thinks of a well-known brand name, such as Nike or Adidas.

A Nike t-shirt in a US sporting goods store can cost over 30 dollars while the same product can be purchased for less than a dollar in a bazaar in Southeast Asia.

“Legal” as determined by the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland, is far more expensive than “legal” as determined by an underpaid policeman patrolling the highways of Northern Albania.

This doesn’t mean that “Legal” as a brand does not has concurrent local, regional, and international significance.

“Legal” reflects not necessarily the majority but rather those with the majority of power, at least for the moment. This makes the concept of the brand “legal” globally recognized and used, if not uniformly constructed or implemented.

Like I said. Legal is a funny word.

I always obey the law, but even I, at times, have trouble taking the word “legal” seriously.

At certain times. In certain places.