Current Trends in Comparative Law: A Symposium of the Younger Comparativist Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law (original) (raw)

Classics in Comparative Law : An Introduction

Legal scholars often criticize comparative law for being an overreaching discipline, lacking a coherent methodology and a well-defined domain. Nevertheless, there remains something exciting and potentially enlightening about comparative law. In these 3 volumes, we present a selection of 77 articles and essays that in our view illustrates the importance of comparative legal analysis. We survey, in a necessarily selective and incomplete way, the modern era of comparative law, beginning in the late 19th century. In this introduction, we summarize many of the themes in the collection, with special attention to three enduring questions in the field: how do law and legal systems develop? How do we understand variation? And why should we care?

Comparative Law’s Coming of Age? Twenty Years after Critical Comparisons†

Comparative Law as Transnational Law, 2011

A. Introduction From its first line, Giinter Frankenberg's article Critical Comparisons, published twenty years ago,' leaves no doubt as to its radical claim and aspiration. Nothing short of attempting to "re-think" comparative law, the article sets out to attack many of the dearly held beliefs in the scholarship and practice of comparative law. The beliefs, the history, the believers, their work and strugglesthey are all there. Frankenberg plows through them in order to lay bare what he conceives of as being an incorrectly defended myth of scholarly objectivity among many of the field's pioneers and contemporary protagonists. Not being alone in his struggle of fiercely assailing the citadels of a nearly century-old comparativist scholarly venture, 2 his crucial contribution to the field cannot now be denied. Whether we consider its open, frank, almost casual style, or its wide reaching theoretical reach, Critical Comparisons remains one of the most eminent articulations of the crisis of comparative law in its first century. 3 At the time of the article's 20th birthday, it is