Emulators are not illegal. The distribution of ROMs is. Why are we even discussing this? The topic creator should check the law before assuming that emulation, in its entirety, is illegal.
An emulator is essentially an interpreter which can read a (copyrighted) piece of software code and allow it to be used in non-native hardware such as a PC or a mobile phone with sufficient processing power.
The only situation in which emulators are illegal is if they include copyrighted code. This usually happens only with BIOS images, which in some situations are an integral part of emulation. Most emulator software allows you to 'add' your own BIOS, therefore bypassing this thorny issue -- by not giving you the BIOS, they are not distributing illegal code. But you could be an illegal user if the BIOS image has not been derived from your own console (using, for example, a NAND flash reader).
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