Diapositives versus Movies – The Inner Dynamics of the Law and Its Comparative Account

Abstract

The paper is the introduction to the Cambridge Companion to Comparative Law. The book (as well as its introduction) goes through the variety of possible nuances of comparative law. Acknowledging that diverse working comparative methods can all be useful tools to the understanding of the legal phenomena, this preface sets up two provisos. One is that any method one relies on should enable the researcher to stay close to what the law is, to how the law lives in the different settings – regardless of what one would like (i.e. regardless of what any kind of personal and cultural bias may expect) the law to be. The second proviso is that academically acceptable comparisons cannot be performed by anybody. There is indeed a widespread sense that comparison is not a professional endeavor per se, but just a method or an approach that, no matter how superficially, any legal scholar can adopt. This attitude is culturally naïve and scientifically noxious.

Keywords: comparative legal studies, comparative methodology

JEL Classification: K10