Teaching Latin American Law

Abstract

Latin America, as the subject of legal area studies, presents a special problem in justification. The defense of Latin American studies cannot rest on the values, however they may be described, of comparison with the so-called non-Western areas-at least not when we are talking about legal studies. Law, as it is written and taught in Latin America, lies plainly within the traditions of Europe and North America. Indeed, so many of Latin America's institutions and so much of its legal doctrine are derived from foreign sources that it is arguable that there is little point in focusing on Latin America in a basic course in comparative law. The European countries have produced incomparably richer source materials, both primary and secondary. Some years back I tried to formulate what it is about law in Latin America that makes it a worthwhile focus for study by American lawyers. Since this is a gathering of academics, perhaps it will seem entirely normnal if I quote myself. . . .Latin America . . . has features that make the comparative study of legal institutions particularly rewarding: (a) a view of the role of law in the community that differs markedly from attitudes in the United States and Western Europe; (b) a degree of disparity between the written law and the law in action characteristic of the world's developing societies; (c) a varying social structure, ranging from the modern and highly Westernized to the semi-feudal; and (d) a rate of social change whose rapidity places serious strain on society's institutional framework. I am willing to stick with that statement. You will have noticed that there is nothing in the statement about training lawyers to handle the affairs of clients with interests in Latin America, or even training them to be able to talk to local counsel about a problem that might arise there. I do not reject those objectives as unworthy; I know of at least one course that is taught in an excellent law school by a talented professor, and which is aimed principally at those objectives. I say only that they are not my objectives. The statement quoted above emphasizes the study of Latin American legal institutions in their social contexts. Once again we should be hard put to demonstrate how such a course differs from any other law school course. Now that the realists have largely won the day,