although until now we have avoided comparing the merits of the law way of seeing the world with other ways, it is at this point necessary to consider the wider international implications of this perspective. we will argue that, in spite of our way of using ethnography, it is not finally possible simply to adopt the Dickensian relativist position which isolate our way of understanding rules and dispute resolution from those of other people. the impossibility is caused only indirectly, but nevertheless necessary , by our legal world. that it is so is because the economies of the rich and largely Western (though including Japan) states have come to affect every corner of the world, no matter how remote, how picturesque or how 'primitive', whether land or sea, or inhabited or uninhabited. no matter wherever, our legal perception of the world affect. our argument is that other peoples cannot simply do thing the way in which they might wish because of dominance of the Western economic system, the Western concept of law and consequently our dominance in the ability to define issue.