ABSTRACT
Otto Kahn-Freund once wrote that comparative law 'is not a topic, but a method'. Comparative law, he continued, 'is the common name for a variety of methods of looking at law, and especially of looking at one's own law'. Chevrel says that the 'scientific' aspect of the comparative process is to be found in the way comparatists construct a space with frontiers that deliberately mark off a body, or bodies, of literature that come from 'other' cultures. The 'nature' paradigm is one that starts out from the assumption that the social sciences are no different from the natural sciences. The idea of differential comparison has given rise to a debate within comparative law. Accordingly, the researcher who is embarking on comparative work must first be very clear about his or her research question, for it is this question that largely determines what might be called the models and programme to be adopted.
