Samenvatting

Legal change is likely to be the product of a complicated process involving many actors. Law making in international organisations and national legislatures are obvious examples. However, legal change sometimes appears to have resulted from the efforts of an individual actor. Against the odds, his or her new ideas win the day in a legal arena, changing the course of legal development. This special issue samples some of these cases, with examples from various legal arenas, such as an international organisation, national legislatures, a supreme court and a law school. The authors reconstruct the history of their case, examining whether the actors have indeed played a key role in the legal change considered, under what conditions they were able to do this and what remained of their efforts in legal practice.