Mathias Siems (Edinburgh/Cambridge) has posted 'The End of Comparative Law' on SSRN (The Journal of Comparative Law 2007, 133-150). This is the abstract:
Following the 1900 congress in Paris, the beginning of the 20th century saw comparative law emerge as a significant discipline. This paper suggests that the early 21st century is seeing the decline, or maybe even the 'end', of comparative law. In contrast to other claims which see the 21st century as the 'era of comparative law', there are at least four trends which give rise to pessimism: 'the disregard', 'the complexity', 'the simplicity', and 'the irrelevance' of comparative law. These phenomena will be explained in the body of this paper; the concluding part considers suggestions as to how to proceed further.
Mathias Siems's personal blog (SiemsLegal) can be found here.
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Thanks for that (yes, I'm reading your blog). Greetings from Edinburgh. Mathias
ReplyDeleteDear, first of all, thank you for your blog: it's very interesting. Then, go on proudly!
ReplyDeleteI'm writing on the real interesting study of Mathias Siems. In general, he convinced me of necessity to a more "strong campaign" to enforce comparative method in legal fields. I have only a suggestion to explore, maybe in contro-tendency: the strategies that several Constitutional or Supreme Courts (i.e. South Africa, India, ECJ, New Zealand, Canada --not now the UsCourt, it's true) have to use comparative method and "comparative framework" (not only translation) to make their job. Against the important problems that very properly dr. Siems has identified, this hipothesis could be one of the different ways to create an exit-strategy to expand again the fashinating power (therefore, not so soft...) of comparative method.
Best,
Francesco Clementi
(Associate Prof. in Comp. Const. law - Univ. of Perugia - School of Political Science)