Comparative law -- in its mainstream formulation -- consists primarily of comparing and contrasting national legal systems: The similarities and differences between common law and civil law, developed legal systems versus lesser developed ones, the characteristics of legal families, and the functions performed by law or law-substitutes in all societies. However, the practice of comparative law is more usefully understood as multiple –not one single field but rather many different ones that may themselves be compared and contrasted. Varieties of legal comparativism better characterize the multiple valences and uses. This course explores legal comparativism in various settings, such as: International Financial Institutions and their quest for economic growth and development, law-and-development projects in the global South, the bureaucratic construction of legal Europe, the transnational community of investor-state arbitration, and comparative constitutional lawyers concerned with political transformation and authoritarianism.
Jorge ESQUIROL
Séminaire
English
Autumn 2021-2022
Paper final
Cases and Functions : Ralf Michaels, The Functional Method of Comparative Law (2012) Rudolf Schlesinger, Comparative Law: Cases-Texts-Materials (First edition 1950). Zweigert and Kotz, Introduction to Comparative Law (First edition, 1977) Rodolfo Sacc
Law and Development : David Trubek and Marc Galanter, Scholars in Self-Estrangement: Some Reflections on the Crisis of Law and Development Studies in the United States (1974). James Gardner, Legal Imperialism: American Lawyers and Foreign Aid in Latin A
Legal Transplants : Alan Watson, Legal Transplants: An Approach to Comparative Law (First edition, 1974) Katherina Pistor, Daniel Berkowitz, and Jean-Francois Richard, Economic Development, Legality and the Transplant Effect (2000). Mathias Siems, Mali
Legal Legitimacy in Latin America : Jorge Esquirol, Ruling the Law: Legitimacy and Failure in Latin American Legal Systems (2019). Diego Lopez-Medina, The Latin American and Caribbean Legal Traditions (2012) Maximo Langer, Diffusion from the Periphery
International Financial Institutions : Duncan Kennedy, The Three Globalizations of Law and Legal Thought (2006) Rafael La Porta, Floriencio Lopez-de-Silanes, and Andrei Shleifer, The Economic Consequences of Legal Origins (2009) Alvaro Santos, The Worl
Legal Indicators : Sally Egle Merry, The Seductions of Quantification: Measuring Human Rights, Gender Violence, and Sex Trafficking (2016) Rene Uruena, Indicators and the Law: A Case Study of the Rule of Law Index (2015). Annelise Riles, Wigmore's Trea
Decoloniality/Postcoloniality : Teemu Ruskola, Legal Orientalism (2002) Gunter Frankenberg, Comparative Law as Critique (2016) Cossman, Brenda, Turning the Gaze Back on Itself: Comparative Law, Feminist Legal Studie, and the Postcolonial Project (1997)
Comparative Constitutionalism : Mark Tushnet, State Action, Social Welfare Rights and the Judicial Role: Some Comparative Observations (2002) and Authoritarian Constitutionalism (2015) Helena Alviar Garcia, Neoliberalism as a Form of Authoritarian Const
Legal Europe : Daniela Caruso, The Missing View of The Cathedral: The Private Law Paradigm of European Legal Integration (1997) Mauro Bussani and Ugo Mattei, The Common Core Approach to European Private Law (1997) Pierre Legrand, Against a European Civ