An Opportunity Not to Be Missed: The Future of Comparative Law in the United States

Abstract

In this paper I will argue that the fate of comparative law will be determined by its ability to function as a connecting field between law and other social sciences. I will further argue that there is no future for comparative law if its future is linked to the so-called globalization of the law. In recent years it has become fashionable to talk about the globalization of the law. A number of eminent law schools led by New York University have made clear their commitment to a global law program. In addition, a sizeable number of conferences focusing on international and comparative law have been organized, and a symposium issue of the Journal of Legal Education was devoted to the topic of globalization,l as was the 1998 AALS meeting in San Francisco. In view of this trend, the question arises: What is the future of comparative law in the global law school? The seemingly obvious answer is that comparative law will have a brilliant future in this new institutional environment. After all, comparative law scholars, since the birth of their discipline early in our century, have been claiming that the legal system does not end at the borders of the nation state. They have warned against parochialism, national positivism, state-centrism, and all the other sins that they detect in their provincial law school colleagues. Moreover, comparative law scholars are the only ones who have invested in preparing for the collapse of the nation state and the subsequent reversion to a period, much like the time of the ius commune in Europe, when the nationality of a lawyer does not matter and the law has its force not ratione imperii but, once again, imperio rationis. Rather than stemming from the State, the authority of law would flow from its intrinsic character regardless of which jurisdiction produced the law.