Comparative Law and Legal Science

Abstract

This paper argues that it is useful for law students to gain some knowledge of comparative law for the following reasons: 1. A lawyer who has familiarised him or herself with the law of foreign jurisdictions is less likely to experience the 'threshold of the unfamiliar.' 2. Occasionally legal decision makers base their decisions on comparative considerations. 3. The study of comparative law broadens one’s horizon and makes it easier to relativise one’s parochial law. Moreover, the national law can be seen as one possible solution to societal problems, and not anymore as the legal structure of human society. 4. Comparative law can be a useful heuristic tool. It allows legal scientist to generate more easily valuable hypothetical answers to research questions. 5. Depending on the type of research questions one tries to answer and on one’s view of the law, comparative law can also play a role in scientific method.

Such a role is indisputable for some kinds of explanation of the law’s contents (legal transplants). Comparative law in a broad sense may provide data which are relevant for questions of evaluative legal science.

Comparative law can play a role in descriptive legal science too, for instance if one takes law to be the best possible regulation for collective enforcement.

Keywords: Comparative Law, Legal Education, Heuristics, Legal Method