Diverse Legal Classes and Cultures: Challenges and Opportunities—Danish Report

Abstract

This chapter takes the multiculturalization of the legal auditoria as a starting point, and starts out with a historical overview from the perspective of the University of Copenhagen. Due to lack of studies in the field, it is to a large degree based on the personal experience of the author in teaching multicultural classes (international and Erasmus students as well as immigrant Muslim students in Denmark and elsewhere) and comparing ‘extraordinary places’ such as Africa, Greenland, and China. At least at the Faculty of Law of the University of Copenhagen (UCPH), internationalization and globalization may have led to a decreased interest in comparative law among ordinary students, while it has at the same time brought new differences into the classroom. Comparative law has been linked to legal culture in (parts of) the Nordic area, and the contextual approach and a need for a more flexible methodology has been emphasized. The growth of students with an immigrant background and an experience with Muslim legal culture(s) is clearly felt at UCPH in the twenty-first century, and it might give rise to new legal and comparative questions and demands, which are at present unmet, as well as to sensitivities, which have been felt in politics and (symbolic) laws. The article suggests that a ‘pop up’ approach to concrete comparative issues, fields and topics may be one amongst other ways to secure future interest in comparative law amongst students.