Of all the requisite components of a market economy in transition and emerging countries, sound legal systems and institutions have been among the slowest to develop. In recognition of this fact, in August 1998, as the Russian financial crisis was unfolding, this author presented a paper at The Aspen Institute Program on the World Economy setting out “Guiding Principles and Core Requirements for a Legal System in a Market Economy.”1 The underlying premise of the “Guiding Principles” is that the awesome complexity and dynamism of a market economy require laws, rules, and norms, based on transparency and openness, that encourage and facilitate economic interchange and at the same time take into account the fact that some degree of governmental intervention in the “free” market is also required, because market participants are human and thus not perfect.