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Comparative law - full summary
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- Universiteit Gent (UGent)
Summary of Cosmin Cercel's Comparative law, based on the slides, notes from the lectures and summaries from previous years
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Comparative lawCOMPARATIVE LAW 2024-2025
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Part 1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 3
1.1. The concept of comparative law: comparison of law/legal comparison..............................................3
1.2. Research object................................................................................................................................. 3
1.3. Research methodology...................................................................................................................... 6
Part 2. Origins and development............................................................................................................... 7
2.1. Overview............................................................................................................................................ 7
2.2. 2nd half of the middle ages (1000-1500)............................................................................................. 7
2.3. The ‘new age’ (1500-1800)................................................................................................................ 8
2.4. 18th century......................................................................................................................................... 9
2.5. 19th century......................................................................................................................................... 9
2.6. The interwar era (20th century).......................................................................................................... 11
2.7. 2nd half 20th century to today............................................................................................................. 11
Part 3. Applications.................................................................................................................................. 13
3.1. Comparative law & international (public) law....................................................................................13
3.2. Comparative law & private international law (PIL)............................................................................14
3.3. Application of foreign law................................................................................................................. 15
3.4. Comparative constitutional law......................................................................................................... 15
3.5. Comparative law & law-making........................................................................................................ 16
3.6. Comparative law in case-law............................................................................................................ 16
3.7. Reception & legal transplants........................................................................................................... 17
3.8. Harmonization & unification.............................................................................................................. 18
National unification.............................................................................................................................. 19
International unification........................................................................................................................ 20
European Union................................................................................................................................... 20
Unification: the role of comparative law............................................................................................... 21
Part 4. Micro-(legal) comparison............................................................................................................. 21
4.1. Comparability of legal systems......................................................................................................... 21
4.2. Comparability of ‘law’: dogmatic vs. functional.................................................................................23
4.3. Phase 1: knowledge of foreign law................................................................................................... 25
How to establish the existing rule........................................................................................................ 25
The object of comparison: law and doctrine........................................................................................ 26
Law and language............................................................................................................................... 27
Sources of law..................................................................................................................................... 28
4.4. Phase 2: acual comparison.............................................................................................................. 33
Part 5. Macro-(legal) comparison............................................................................................................ 33
5.1. The concept of macro-legal comparison.......................................................................................... 33
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,Comparative law
5.2. The utility of macro-legal comparison............................................................................................... 33
5.3. The concept of legal system............................................................................................................. 35
5.4. Criteria of taxonomy/typology........................................................................................................... 36
Criteria: external factors and development level..................................................................................36
Criteria: genealogy (historic origin)...................................................................................................... 37
Criteria: typology.................................................................................................................................. 37
Criteria: legal culture............................................................................................................................ 38
Criteria: legal traditions........................................................................................................................ 38
5.5. Common law and civil law: ideal type............................................................................................... 39
5.6. Mixed legal systems, hybrid systems & legal pluralism....................................................................39
Part 6. Law as culture............................................................................................................................... 40
6.1. Law as culture: intellectual origins.................................................................................................... 40
6.2. Comparing (Law as Culture)............................................................................................................ 43
6.3. A critique of objectivity...................................................................................................................... 43
6.4. Remnants of colonialism.................................................................................................................. 44
Part 7. Comparing interdisciplinarity...................................................................................................... 44
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,Comparative law – Part 1. Introduction
PART 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. THE CONCEPT OF COMPARATIVE LAW: COMPARISON OF LAW/LEGAL COMPARISON
It is NOT a
o ≠ body of law (objective law) or branch of law
Comparative law is not a part of the legal system, doesn’t have any normative
legal dimension, not a specific branch of law like private or public law
o ≠ type of claim or specific power (subjective right)
Rights are given bc there are objective laws
o ≠ way of resolving conflicts compulsorily (functional law)
o → comparative law ≠ (type of) law
o → some designations are misleading: comparative law (vergelijkend recht)/droit comparé
(‘compared law’, vergeleken recht)
It is
o ‘an intellectual activity with law as its object & comparison as its process’ (Zweigert-Kötz)
o a comparison (= research method) of law (= research object)
Needs more than 1 legal order to compare them to each other
Comparison first used to find a universal law/universal aspects (like human
rights), now more to understand other legal systems
You can’t just compare as you please, there are rules for doing it
If you have knowledge of all legal systems, you can understand what law is in human reality, but
that doesn’t make it the ideal law, in this way, law can be a science
1.2. RESEARCH OBJECT
The research object: what is law?
Importance of the question
o What can/may be compared to give meaningful result?
If you don’t know what law is, you don’t know what to compare
o What must be included in comparison to give meaningful result?
Law = ‘set of rules ordering society’ = hollow description → where do they come from?
o Natural law theory (natuurrecht): law is connected to morals, there’s sth superior to the
mere L here and that thing is of a moral nature, the L is what’s “good”, based on reason
E.g. “Nazi law is not law, bc it infringed upon fundamental values of humanity”
o Law = Sollen (an ought) vs. law = Sein (a being – is, social fact)
Ought: a normative prescription (command), either permits or prevents you from
doing sth, used in morality, deontology, theology (e.g. “you shall not steal”)
These statements (norms) are true or false only in relation to other
statements of this kind (e.g. “stealing is prohibited” is true in a legal
sense, bc it was created according to the constitution (superior norm,
Grundnorm)), but they’re not reality
Grundnorm: law that existed before everything else (cf. big bang in physics, you
can’t go further back than that), everything can be backtracked to that
Hans Kelsen: law has its own legal validity, that validity comes from the fact that
any norm exists bc there’s a superior norm which permitted its existence and so
on, until you get to the basic norm
The law is what lawyers believe is binding, not only written law
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,Comparative law – Part 1. Introduction
You can’t compare a Sollen in 1 country to a Sein in another
o Law belongs to the world of ideas (Sollen) vs. law belongs to world of social facts (Sein)
Law is a social construct, so it doesn’t have a physical or material existence, you
can have proof of its existence which are material (e.g. statute published in
Official Journal of Belgium, case law), but that’s just proof, that’s not the law itself
Just bc sth is there, doesn’t mean it’s true (e.g. constitution)
Just bc sth is a normative rule somewhere, doesn’t mean it exists somewh. else
o You have to know where you place yourself theoretically (e.g.: positivist (law has to be
written), marxist (law is used to oppress people), nihilist (law is stupid))
E.g. if you believe only written law counts as law, you might think the UK doesn’t
have any law
o Legal positivism: a rule ‘exists’ if it is valid = as promulgated/recognised by real/authorised
ruler (law is posited) = based on higher norm or formal source of L (all L is source-based)
Legal positivism: law = what was put by a sovereign, exists bc it was put by sth
Law is separated from morals, it can have sth to do with morals, but that
connection is not necessary for the existence of the law
Law is a command given by the sovereign to his subjects, backed by a sanction
Not clear who the sovereign is (e.g. monarch? Parliament? Constitution?)
Hart: the law is a social practice, which can take the form of the union between
primary (impose duties to individuals, enough in small societies) and secondary
rules (rules on how to change primary rules and make sure they’re applied)
o Sociological positivism (= legal realism): a rule exists if it appears enforced
Rules by itself aren’t binding, they’re just guides, judges can do what they want
with them, law is what courts rule, rules are followed bc judges can punish
Legal realism: law is a social process, doesn’t matter who put the law there, only
matters how it operates, it exists to fulfil social functions, law in action
o Law as practice vs. law as theoretical representation of practice (= doctrine - teaching)
You need to decide for yourself whether law is a form of intellectual/scientific
analysis or determined by sociological practice
Law in books is always different than law in practice, bc judges apply it differently
o Law as enforced settlement of conflicts:
By government
By third party (to conflict)
By any means (i.e. all conflict resolution, incl. conciliation, ‘right of the strongest’)
Object: micro- vs. macro- legal comparison
Micro-legal comparison: what is compared?
o Focusing on 1 area of the law, so you can get more in-depth, useful for policy makers to
see what other countries do, so they can implement it into their own legal system
o Specific elements in different doctrines: concepts, rules, branches of law
E.g. compare law of contract in UK vs. US
o Resolution of specific types of conflicts (practical problem) in different jurisdictions
E.g. how is vandalism punished in German, French, Belgian law?
o You do micro bc you need to/are forced to, bc it’s useful for practice
Macro-legal comparison: structural legal comparison
o Comparing typical characteristics of entire legal systems, not specific rules
o → Classification of legal systems into categories, legal systems can be categorised into
branches (taxonomy gives an idea of what the legal system is like)
E.g. all of the legal systems that originate from the romano-germanic branch,
have a civil code; common law vs. civil law
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,Comparative law – Part 1. Introduction
o You need to understand the distinguishing features of a legal system, you need to know
what counts as law (e.g. there was a constitution in the Soviet-Union, but there were
working camps, bc whatever Stalin said, could overrule the constitution)
Macro-comparison is based on the research results of micro-comparisons
o Micro-legal comparison enables you to wonder why there are differences in the small
things that you’re observing, so you’ll look at the bigger framework (part of the law,
deeper historical or normative system)
o The ‘characteristics’ of a legal system are derived from findings in elements of that system
o Recognizing which characteristic is typical implies prior (micro-)comparison
Micro-comparison uses research results from macro-comparisons
o Macro-legal comparison is used to ask better questions in micro-legal comparison
o Choice of legal systems to compare: choice of what systems you use to compare
depends on what systems are very different from each other, so depends on the result of
macro-comparison
E.g. French law doesn’t differ that much from Belgian, but Cuban law does
o Source study: from macro-comparison we learn how to deal with a certain law
o Understanding of found rules in context (re-integration)
o Basis for explaining differences/similarities: you need general characteristics & context
Object: national vs. inter(n-)national
National vs. international
o Traditional: comparison 2 or more (nat’l) ‘legal systems’ = horizontal comparison of law
E.g. UK vs. US, legal orders are considered equal, the point of comparison is not
to say which one is better, but to understand how they function
Legal orders are related to nation states
o Recent: comparison national vs. supranational law = vertical comparative law
E.g. member state vs. EU, legal orders are not on the same level
There’s always sth connecting the levels, they’re not fully distinct
Inter-national vs. Internal-national
o Traditional: comparison outside national system = external comparative law
o Recent: comparison different legal ‘parts’ in national law = internal comparative law
Harmonised national law vs. ‘autonomous’ national law
E.g. comparing part of Belgian law that’s harmonised by EU with part of
Belgian law that’s not harmonised
Autonomous: legal order exists in and for itself, there’s a legal centre (the
constitution) which holds everything together, legal order is organised like
a pyramid, with the constitution (basic norm) on top, then statutory level
and then regulatory frameworks (decrees and ordonnances)
Different branches of law within nat’l law
Some words have a different meaning in different branches of law
(e.g. “onderneming” in company law vs. insolvency law)
Some different branches have different tests of proof
(e.g. civil law vs. penal law: possibility vs. beyond reasonable doubt)
Legal pluralism: recognition of various ‘legal wholes’/normative orders in 1 society
E.g. doctors make their own rules; some countries have separate courts
that follow Islamic law or indigenous law
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, Comparative law – Part 1. Introduction
1.3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research method: components
Foreign Law Studies = study of foreign law (foreign legal doctrine) in itself (= purely in its own
context) ≠ comparative law
o But be careful: an outsider views foreign law through their own lens = sees foreign law in
terms of their own doctrine → observation of foreign law is inherently ‘comparative’
Comparative Law in the strict sense: identifying, explaining & assessing similarities/differences
o Variety of purposes for which law is studied and compared
Contrastive comparison: identifying differences
Integrative comparison: identifying similarities or common elements
o → no universally accepted unified method = academic discussion among ‘theoretical
comparatists’, less so among ‘occasional’ or ‘applied’ micro-comparatists
There’s not 1 way to do good comparison, but there are many ways to do it badly
Comparative law vs legal history
Methodological similarities
o Legal history ≈ comparative law on the dimension of time (through time)
o Legal reality changes over time (e.g. abolition of death penalty)
o Doctrine/legal theory changes over time
o Doctrine/legal theory does not evolve 1-to-1 with legal reality
o Content of legal concepts/terms changes (cf. language evolution) (e.g. AH-R → SV-R)
o Legal history
Changes in the reality of the law (= socio-political history)
Comparing the law of the past with the law of the present: both in terms of
now or then (‘translation’)
Changes in representation (= legal doctrine, concepts) of law (= history of ideas)
Comparing the representation of the law (doctrine) of the past with the
representation of the law (doctrine) of the present
Legal history as an aid in comparative law: explanation of identified similarities/differences in
law/legal doctrine (e.g.: ‘emergency’)
Sociology, anthropology, legal theory
The Sociology of law
o Studies:
Influence society has on law (material sources of L, substantive explanation of L)
The influence of law on society (effects of law)
o Comparative law provides (empirical) input to sociology of law
o Legal sociology provides input to comparative law on
Legally ‘neutral’ concepts to express problems → studies law separate from legal
theory
Knowledge/understanding of context in which law exists/functions → explain
similarity/difference
Legal anthropology/ethnology
o Distinguishes universal elements from specific elements in law evolution
o Recent application: identify legal obstacles to development
o Anthropological methods to analyse current law: emic vs. etic approach
Legal theory (in English also jurisprudence)
o Comparative law = heuristic for legal theory
o Comparative law provides data & insight for theorisation & “falsification” of legal theory
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