An International Scientific Conference of Sociolegal Scholars is planned for June 25-29, 1991, in Amsterdam, Netherlands. This event is the first truly international scientific gathering in this field, with roughly equal participation from the U.S. and Western Europe, as well as participants from elsewhere in North and South America, Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Oceania, and the Near East. The purpose of the conference is to strengthen collaborative comparative research across both national and disciplinary boundaries. The grant is to provide support for travel by U.S. participants to the conference. In the selection of awardees, the co-sponsors (the Law and Society Association and the International Sociological Association) have assigned first priority to younger scholars (both those who are about to receive their Ph.Ds. and those of have received them recently). Most social scientific studies of law in the United States have focussed on "common law" institutions as they have evolved in this country. The potential for advancing knowledge through comparative studies with other common law systems, with civil law systems, and with other forms is great. Moreover, with legal and social structures changing so markedly in many parts of the world, the cross-cultural research, stimulated by the conference, should take on an added timeliness and significance.
