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The end of the 2015/16 academic year was marked by the fourth Biennial Conference of the European Society for Comparative Legal History (ESCLH). The ESCLH was born in December 2009 out of discontent with the narrow nationalism and geographical segregation of legal history in contemporary European scholarship and professional organisations. True to its founding principles, the society organised three biennial conferences in Valencia (2010), Amsterdam (2012) and Macerata (2014), established dedicated journal ‘Comparative Legal History’ (since 2013) and proved to be an effective framework for investigating cross-cultural influences and hybridity of legal systems in European history. This year the ESCHL conference, entitled «Culture, Identity and Legal Instrumentalism», was held in Gdańsk and Gdynia (Poland) from 28 June to 1 July 2016, in cooperation with the Chair of Legal History and the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Gdańsk. As the conference title suggests, the focus was set on the issue of law as an instrument of transforming reality in the individual circles and sub-circles of Europe and the world. The organisers, building on the legacy of the earlier ESCLH meetings, aimed at providing the ground for as many legal historians as possible to understand the instrumentality of law through two broad themes. Law may be considered as an instrument functionally or axiologically, that is either through the prism of analysis of techniques or of objectives. Within the functional approach, particularly welcomed were the papers which addressed how legal problems are identified and their solutions developed, whether autonomously or by transplantation and subsequent adaptation. Within the axiological approach, the papers explaining how law can transform reality were welcomed, especially as a tool of modernisation and / or as a means to shape and strengthen national identity or other goals defined from the viewpoint of national interest. Papers addressed the conference theme, exploring doctrinal, theoretical, cultural or methodological aspects of comparative legal history. Addressing multiple cultures was encouraged. This included where a similar legal system functioned in two different cultural circles as a result of massive transplantation of foreign legal solutions and where a given homogenous cultural circle has been divided and various legal systems function in its individual parts. In comparison to the previous ESCLH conference in Macerata (2014), this one witnessed a remarkable growth in the number of applications (over 130), actual participants and the agenda. In fact, a single congress became a venue for at least three distinct meetings: (1) a one-day summer school for young researchers, who were instructed on how to make their contribution to comparative legal history — during this session prof. Phillip Hellwege (University of Augsburg), Stefano Vinci (University of Bari Aldo Moro) and Aniceto Masferrer (University of Valencia) shared their views on methodological challenges and problems in this domain; (2) the discussion boards on 28–30 June and 1 July with a closer look on the position of the host country, Poland, in Europe and on transformations in Polish Law and Legal Culture at the Turn of the 20th and 21th centuries in comparative perspective (featuring such special guests as the presidents of the Republic of Poland, Lech Wałęsa (1990–1995) and Bronisław Komorowski (2010–2015), and justices emeriti of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal, Ewa Łętowska and Jerzy Stępień); (3) the annual general assembly of the ESCLH members to discuss the current issues of the society and to grant Van Caenegem Prize 2016 for best article in the ESCLH journal written by a scholar under the age of 30 (this year Frederik Dhondt from Free University of Brussels was distinguished); and (4) the main forum on culture, identity and legal instrumentalism in history. In order to give the participants a better idea of the historical and cultural diversity in Gdańsk area, the organisers changed the venues several times. On 28 and 29 June the conference was held in the Old Town of Gdańsk (the European Solidarity Centre, the Artus Court, i.e. the historical meeting place of merchants, and the Great Hall of the Main Town Hall). On 30 June the debate moved to Gdynia (the Pomeranian Science and Technology Park). On 1 July the participants met at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the host university. The broad topic of the conference attracted over 113 participants (or about 150 with listeners) from many EU countries, Brazil, Israel, Russia, South Africa and North America. The best overview of the subject range of the presentations gives the list of the panels packed in four days: (http://www.esclhconference2016.pl)