If comparative legal studies are to retain their relevance in understanding the impact of global changes on existing local traditions, their modes of interaction and influence, and their strategies for survival, then, the article concludes, their focus certainly needs adjusting. This article attempts to examine the ways in which comparative law as a discipline is affected by the changes wrought by globalization, and in particular the challenges which such changes imply for the methodological agenda of comparative legal studies and for its ideological commitments. More pragmatically, it may also be useful to envisage the impact of increased access to information on foreign laws, and the growth of trans- or international sources of uniform law, on the practical usefulness of comparative law. [Editor's abstract]