From Legal Transplants to Legal Translations: The Globalization of Plea Bargaining and the Americanization Thesis in Criminal Procedure (original) (raw)

This article analyzes the Americanization thesis in criminal procedure. According to the strong version of this thesis, the U.S. legal system has become the most influential system in the world and, as a consequence, a substantial number of legal systems may gradually come to resemble or mimic the American one and thus become Americanized. This article cautions against the strong version of the Americanization thesis through an examination of the introduction of American-style plea bargaining in four civil law countries - Argentina, France, Germany and Italy. It shows that even if each of these countries has introduced a form of plea bargaining, there are two main series of reasons that explain why these jurisdictions will probably not be Americanized. First, there are important features of civil law countries' inquisitorial system that may neutralize the Americanization effect of the imported practice. Second, these four civil law jurisdictions have introduced plea bargains tha...