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The Importance of Context: Selecting Legal Systems in Comparative Legal Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2009

Marieke Oderkerk
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These days, a century after the famous Paris convention on comparative law, comparative legal research is booming. A large percentage of legal research – at least in the Netherlands – currently is conducted on a comparative basis. However, whereas the interest in conducting comparative legal research is growing, the interest i n how to carry out this type of research is diminishing. Applied comparative legal research is supposed to be ‘good’; discussions on how to carry out this type of research are considered a waste of time. I would agree wholeheartedly with the latter statement if there were a clear, crystallized and accepted theory, or if there were no need for a method at all. In my opinion, the latter statement thus must be rejected. Although, as is often said, ‘a lot’ has been written about the methods of comparative law, there is still no consensus on a theory of comparative law. Ideas on methodology are elaborated from different points of view and no unequivocal concepts are used. The idea that there is no need for a method denies both the academic character of comparative legal research and the fact that nowadays a great deal of comparative legal research is carried out by relatively young and – in the field of comparative legal research – inexperienced PhD students who would welcome some clear guidelines. As methods are simply lessons learned by people who have done something by trial and error, why shouldn’t one benefit from the lessons learned by others?

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Netherlands International Law Review , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , December 2001 , pp. 293 - 318
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Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 2001

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References

2. This opinion is usually expressed in more polite terms and rather orally than in writing. Nevertheless, one does hear regularly echoes of the following statement of Hessel E. Yntema, the Chief Editor of the American Journal of Comparative Law: ‘Don’t send articles about comparative law; get busy and do some comparing’, as cited with consent by Drion, J., Nederlands Juristenblad (1964) p. 279Google Scholar. See also Pintens, W., Inleiding tot de rechtsvergelijking [Introduction to Comparative Law] (Leuven, Universitaire Pers Leuven 1998) p. 87.Google Scholar

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4. Avoiding the comparison of objects that are not useful to compare (incomparable) in the given context.

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19. Ibid., p. 110.

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74. Providing an example to follow or to avoid.

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80. Strictly speaking, it would be better to use the term ‘intended applications’ of the knowledge obtained rather than the term ‘objective’, since the only objective of a comparative research project is to obtain knowledge and all other ‘objectives’ are in fact intended applications. However, since the term ‘objective’ is commonly used in both senses, I will use it to refer to both the direct objective of the comparison (to obtain knowledge) and the intended application of the knowledge obtained.

81. By tertium comparationis is meant a feature that two or more objects have in common. Most authors are of the opinion that to ascertain comparability in comparative law this feature must be the function of the objects to be compared. Some authors name ‘structure’ and ‘consequences’ as features that can constitute comparability as well. See Oderkerk, , op. cit. n. 68, at pp. 61–88, 233–239.Google Scholar

82. This conclusion is drawn by the comparatist herself (Iest, K., Klachtrecht van de individuele werknemer. Rechtsvergelijkend onderzoek naar klachtprocedures in Amerikaanse en Nederlandse ondernemingen [Grievance Law of the Individual Employee. A Comparative Legal Study on Grievance Procedures in American and Dutch Companies] (Deventer, Kluwer 1991) pp. 119–120).Google Scholar

83. In my opinion, the functions of the regulations under analysis do not always have to be equivalent. Only in cases in which the objective of the research project is law reform does the function of the regulations under analysis need to be equivalent. Of course, the majority of research projects will have this objective. There are, however, projects that will have objectives like the determination of the influence of ideology on the development of the function of a certain rule. In these cases, the function of the regulations need not to be equivalent; indeed it will be more interesting if the form of the regulations are equivalent but their functions differ.

84. Cf, Dijk, Van, op. cit. n. 31, at p. 82.Google Scholar

85. Drobnig, , op. cit. n. 5, at pp. 221–233. Cf, section 2.2.2.Google Scholar

86. Zweigert, and Kotz, , op. cit. n. 10, at p. 33.Google Scholar