ABSTRACT
Comparative law is a well-established discipline today. 2 However, uncertainties remain regarding the teaching and learning method as well as the content of courses on comparative law and on comparative methodology. Matthias Reimann, comparatist at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, wrote a few years ago that “[w]hile comparative law has been a considerable success in terms of producing a wealth of knowledge, it has […] failed to mature into an up-to-date, well-defined, and coherent discipline”. 3 “[C]omparatists still have no overall theoretical framework explaining, what kind of ‘law’ to compare for what purpose, what to prove or disprove through comparison, and, most embarrassingly, how exactly to go about it.” 4 In the 1980s, Karl H. Neumayer had already written that “[i]n no other discipline […] does such uncertainty reign as in comparative law regarding the 6teaching method and the content of the courses”. 5 Other authors have noticed a lack of manuals and casebooks intended for a modern and interactive 6 teaching of comparative law. Edith Friedler has written on the situation in the USA that “recent efforts to give comparative law a facelift are directed more towards scholars than classroom teachers. They bring to mind Roscoe Pound’s insistence that this is a discipline for academics and legislators, not for law school class.” 7 Antoine Bullier, comparatist at the University Paris 1, Panthéon Sorbonne, has recently observed that for students and future lawyers and judges, it is often not evident that using the comparative methodology can lead to immediate and tangible results, or that comparative law knowledge can really be useful for the students’ future careers. 8
