Classification of Legal Families Today. Is it time for a memorial hymn ?

Abstract

Classifying and grouping legal systems is said to be an elemental part of macrocomparative law. The author asks if it still is feasible to continue this macro-project or has it come time to play a memorial hymn now? Traditional comparative law has constructed manifold groupings and classifications, but according to the author the pieces of the puzzle have largely remained the same. However, the new strands of comparative law are saying that attempts to draw a map of the world’s legal systems are non-neutral biased projects because all classifications, categories, taxonomies and groupings are fundamentally flawed. The controversy between the tradition and critical or post-modern comparative law seems to end up in a state of epistemic confusion. What should be done in order to overcome the present deadlock of this debate? Two novel sketches for classification of the legal systems are presented and critically analysed in the article. According to the author both of these are a clear indication of some inborn epistemic difficulties that macro-comparative law a priori seems to contain. The article looks critically into these drafts, and re-positions the focus to the more general issue of classifying legal systems into larger groups. One of the main findings is the foundation of the current epistemic problems. The author points at the importance of Max Weber’s methodological influence to the project of comparative law which seems to produce basically the same kind of categorical classifications over and over again even when the scholars themselves are explicitly trying to avoid these problems. Basically, the article presents an argument according to which the very basic epistemic limitation of macro-comparative law is the categorical tradition that excludes truly novel ideas and empirical finesse. The main contemporary challenge of comparative law is to develop a common perspective through which the empirical reality of legal systems would be adequately reflected in the global map of macro-comparative law. In order to do this comparative lawyers must, however, methodologically incorporate the insights and findings of other disciplines studying law. This is inevitable if the vast complexity of law in the 21st century is going to be the empirical base of the classifications and groupings of macro-comparative law.