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Teaching and research in Comparative Law in The Netherlands*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2009

Ewoud H. Hondius
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Extract

Whenever the use of comparative law is discussed, the question arises as to whether the phrase encompasses the use of foreign law. In this report comparative law will be taken in a broad sense, to include foreign law. For practical reasons subjects which are not confined to the boundaries of a single system – such as European law, international law and the law of international organisations – will not be covered in this report. For the same reasons no attention will be paid to those branches of legal science, which do not primarily deal with positive law, such as jurisprudence, legal methodology, sociology of the law and criminology.

Type
Notes and Shorter Articles
Information
Netherlands International Law Review , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , December 1977 , pp. 560 - 577
Copyright
Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 1977

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References

1. Cf., Winterton, G., ‘Comparative law teaching’, 23 American journal of comparative law pp. 69–70 (1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Merryman, J.H. in Law in the USA in social and technological revolution, Brussels, 1974, pp. 81, 82Google Scholar; Stevens, , ‘Comparative and foreign law in American law schools’, 50 Columbia law review (1950)Google Scholar; Rheinstein, M., ‘Teaching comparative law’, 5 University of Chicago law review pp. 615, 616 (1938)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (A German translation of the Rheinstein article has appeared in his Einführung in die Rechtsvergleichung, Munich, 1974, p. 21 ff.) See also, Tunc, A., ‘Notion et objectifs d'une revue de droit compare’, Revue Internationale de droit compare 1975, pp. 47, 48Google Scholar: ‘Il semble bien aller de soi que la revue (Internationale de droit comparé) ne publiera pas seulement des comparaisons de droit, mais aussi des études de droit national étranger (ou de droit européen, assimilable ici, sous des réserves évidentes, à un droit national), qui donneront à chaque lecteur les éléments d'une comparaison à laquelle il pourra procéder lui-même’. Knapp, V., Mélanges Mélmström, Stockholm, 1972, pp. 132, 140Google Scholar, argues that for those who consider comparative law a mere research method it cannot include the study of foreign legal systems.

2. Although the teaching of these courses may serve some of the possible aims of the teaching of comparative (private, administrative, etc.) law thereby providing students with a less provincial outlook for instance. This is apparent in the Tilburg requirement, discussed below in par. 2.2., that every law student should elect one of a number of courses with an international outlook.

3. There seems to be no systematic approach to comparative law in governmental Bills. On the one extreme there is for instance the Ontwerp voor een nieuw burgerlijk wetboek (draft new civil code), the explanatory memorandum to which often reads like a comparative law treatise, witness for instance the first sentence regarding book 6: “Unlike the present civil code and the German, Italian and Greek codes, the draft has devoted a special book to the general parts of the law of obligations, while the legally regulated specific contracts have been grouped in a different book. One finds the same system in the Swiss and the Egyptian codes and in the French avant-projet”. On the other extreme there are bills which do not contain any reference to foreign law at all, even if – as was the case with the bill on door-to-door-sales – the issue has been discussed recently in many of the surrounding countries. It seems that the Ministry of Justice has by far the best record in providing references to foreign law in its bills. The highest comparative law-ratio is obtained when Royal commissions with outside participation (university teachers) have prepared the bill.

4. A 1943 Hoge Road decision – HR 21 May 1943 Nederlandse Jurisprudentie 1943Google Scholar No. 455, cf., Kisch, I., Statutory construction in a new key/‘harmonizing interpretation’, in XXth century comparative and conflicts law/legal essays in honor of Hessel E. Yntema, Leyden, 1961, pp. 262, 263Google Scholar. – which held that in tort a victim may claim compensation for such detriments as are not of a financial character, is still discussed in Dutch literature because it was explicitly based on, among other things, the positive answer to this question in the legislation and case law of the neighbouring countries. This decision has proven to be a rara avis. Ever since, references to foreign law usually are not made, even if it is quite clear that inspiration was drawn from foreign law.

5. Previous generations of continental lawyers had Roman law as a common base for legal communication. The present retreat of Roman law as the basic course of first-year law studies may be partly compensated by the teaching of comparative law. Nothing new of course: cf., R. von Jhering, Geist des römischen Rechts auf den verschiedenen Stufen seiner Entwicklung I, second edition 14 ff: ‘The formal unity of legal science as it formerly existed through the commonalty of one and the same Code in use throughout the greater part of Europe, and that working together by legal science in the most diverse countries on the same subject matter and the same tasks is gone forever, along with the formal community of law. Legal science has been degraded to provincial jurisprudence, and the boundaries of legal science coincide with political boundaries. How humiliating and unworthy such form for a science! But it is for science alone to transcend these boundaries and to preserve for the future its old character of transnationality in the new form given by comparative jurisprudence. This will carry different methods, a broader outlook, a judgement more mature, and a greater freedom in the treatment of materials, and therefore the apparent loss will be turned effectively to its advantage by raising science to higher levels of scholarly pursuit’ (This English translation is given by Zweigert, K. and Siehr, K., ‘Jhering's influence on the development of comparative legal method’, 10 American journal of comparative law pp. 215, 218 (1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A French translation may be found in the Livre du centenaire de la Société de législation comparee, Paris, 1969, II, pp. 267, 292). Cf., in the same vein Drucker, H.L., Begrip en dogma in rechtswetenschap, inaugural address Leyden, Haarlem, 1889, pp. 3–4Google Scholar: ‘Door het Romeinsche Recht, dat overal min of meer de historische basis vormt, staan wij voorts op een gemeenschappelijken bodem met de juristen der overige beschaafde volken;het gevaar vermeden, dat onze wetenschap, meer misschien dan eenige andere, bedreigt: beperking van den horizont tot de enge grenzen van een land’.

6. The foreign-language problem has been further increased by the influx of law students from Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles, who often have learnt English and Spanish and no French or German.

7. The Leyden approach was challenged by M.C. Burkens in his report to the 1975 meeting of the Netherlands comparative law association on methodology of comparative constitutional law, in which he advocated a far more political science-oriented approach.

8. David, R., Les grands systèmes de droit contempoiains, fifth edition, Paris, 1973Google Scholar (also used in the English translation by Brierly or the German translation by Grasmann).

9. Zweigert, K. and Kötz, G., Einführung in die Rechtsvergleichung auf dem Gebiete des Privatrechts, Tübingen, 1969–1971 (2 volumes).Google Scholar

10. Sauveplanne, J.G., Rechtsstelsels in vogelvlucht/Een inleiding tot de privaatrechtsveljelijking, Deventer, 1975.Google Scholar

11. Uniken Venema, C.AE., Van common law en civil law, Zwolle, 1971.Google Scholar

12. Kianenbutg, R., Inleiding in de vergelijkende staatsrechtswetenschap, second edition, Haarlem, 1955.Google Scholar

13. Cf., the theories of R.B. Schlesinger on a common core of legal systems.

14. See, Neumayer, , Rabels Zeitschrift, 1968, pp. 405, 408Google Scholar, n. 10: ‘Ist es nicht eigentlich so, dass der Staatsrechtler von Natur aus zur Vergleichung neigt, während beim Privatrechtler hierfür besonderes Spezialistentum erwartet wird?’

15. See, n. 21, below.

16. Ars Aequi regularly offers prizes to the best answers to legal questions, which are published about once every other month. Recently a legal question involving comparative law was published. Not a single answer was received – see, 26 Ars Aequi, pp. 282, 283 (1977).Google Scholar

17. ‘It is perhaps not the job of the lawyer to break new ground. His work is rather to follow the explorers and make ordered colonisation of the conquered territory possible. Are our law faculties sufficiently aware of this? I should like to think so. But, for the time being, I am rather inclined to approve the final comment made by Professor Carreau: “Lack of adequate co-ordination between European law faculties keeps students in their countries of origin, at least for the elementary cycle … Is this not a shocking anachronism after 25 years of so much effort – some of it successful – to bring about increasing unity in Europe?”’ H. Brugmans, Prospects for law in contemporary society, in: Council of Europe, Proceedings of the third European conference of law faculties 17–19 April 1974 on ‘The adaptation of the study of law to modern society’, Strasbourg, 1974.Google Scholar

18. As to the influence of Dutch legal education in the seventeenth century, cf., Feenstra, R. and Waal, C.J.D., Seventeenth-century Leyden law professors and their influence on the development of the civil law, Amsterdam, 1975.Google Scholar

19. Cf., Hazard, J.N., ‘Ten years of international teaching of comparative law/The Strasbourg experiment’, 19 American Journal of comparative law p. 253 ff. (1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Cf., Neumayer, K.H., ‘Betrachtungen zum rechtsvergleichenden Unterricht auf internationaler Grundlage’, 32 Rabels Zeitschrift, pp. 405–437 (1968).Google Scholar

21. The Asser-de Ruijter treatise on the law of persons contains but 20 references to foreign law of which 14 to French, 3 to German and 3 to Swedish law. The relatively many references to French law reflect the historical French roots of Dutch legislation in this field. The Pitlo-series is even more disappointing. After glancing through the first 200 pages of Pitlo's Zakenrecht withoift finding a single reference to foreign law, this author gave up.

22. This is of course done on a comparative basis. Cf., T.M.C. Asser Instituut 1965–1975/Aangeboden ter gelegenheid van het tienjarig bestaan van het T.M.C. Asser Instituut aan het bestuur, de wetenschappelijke raad en de deelnemende instellingen, The Hague, 1975.

23. Sauveplanne, J.G. (ed.), Security over corporeal movables, Studies in comparative law no. 1, Leyden, 1974Google Scholar, with contributions by A.L. Diamond (England and Wales), W.A. Wilson (Scotland), M.G. Shanker (USA), S. Ziegler (Canada), G. Brière de l'Isle (France); B. Carpino (Italy); J.G. Sauveplanne (The Netherlands), U. Drobnig (Germany), P. Tercier (Switzerland), B. Helander (Sweden), D. Roebuck (Asia); Koopmans, T. (ed.), Constitutional protection of equality, Studies in comparative law no. 2, Leyden, 1975Google Scholar, with contributions by L. Lusky and M. Botein (USA), E. McWhinney (Canada), E. Klein (Federal Republic of Germany), J.C. Venezia (France), Chr. Osakwe (USSR) and T. Koopmans (comparative analysis and evaluation).

24. Cf., Polak, J.M., ‘Twintig jaar Belgjsch-Nederlandse samenwerking op het gebied van het recht’, Rechtskundig weekblad 1967/1968, pp. 673–680.Google Scholar

25. Such a law review did exist in the last century. The Rechtsgeleerd magazijn, subtitled ‘tijdschrift voor binnen- en buitenlandsche rechtsstudie’ (review for domestic and foreign legal research) originally devoted much attention to foreign legal publications, foreign case law and foreign legislation, but gradually this interest withered away until recently one of the last remnants of the comparative law approach, the summary of Soviet law, was relinquished.

26. Cf., Szabo, I., Revue intemationale de droit comparé 1975, p. 79.Google Scholar

27. Cf., O. Kahn-Freund o.c. (n. 9 above).

28. The 1974 volume for instance contained 117 announcements of Dutch publications, 43 of German-language publications, and 10, 8 and 5 of English-, French- and other language publications.

29. Fokkema, D.C., Begrensde gerechtigheid, inaugural address Leyden, Leyden, 1963, p. 15.Google Scholar

30. A 500-page English-language introduction to Dutch law, edited by D.C. Fokkema, J.M.J. Chorus, E.H. Hondius and E.Ch. Lisser is now under press. Earlier introductions in English to Dutch law include: T. Koopmans (The Netherlands) in: Knapp, V. (ed.), International encyclopedia of comparative law, I. National reports, Tübingen/The Hague/Paris 1972Google Scholar, N-11/N-28; Graulich, P., Guilitte, P., Glastra van Loon, J.F. and van Holk, L.E., Guide to foreign legal materials/Beigium-Luxembourg-Netherlands, Parker school of foreign and comparative law, New York, 1968.Google Scholar

31. The Netherlands Comparative Law Association is at present considering the publication of such a yearbook for The Netherlands.

32. Of all East European countries only Albania and the Soviet Union do not publish such reviews.

33. To be fair, the participation in international congresses for recreational purposes is not a strictly Dutch phenomenon as may be proved by the following quotation: ‘Noch sind die meisten derjenigen, die sich so gem in bilateralen und internationalen Juristenvereinigungen betätigen, mehr an akademischem Tourismus als an wirklicher rechtsvergleichender Forschung interessiert…’. Wengler, W., in: Rotondi, M. (ed.), Inchieste di diritto comparato, p. 2. Buts et méthodes du droit compare, Padua/New York, 1973, pp. 723, 726.Google Scholar

34. The Xth congress, to be held in Budapest in 1978, promises to be better in this regard: so far more than 30 contributions have been promised.

35. Such as Paul Scholten's famous General Part of the Asser-Series.

36. Recent Dutch theses written in a foreign language include de Buy, F.H.E.W., Das Recht auf die Heimat/Realität oder Fiktion, thesis Utrecht 1975Google Scholar; Ybema, S., Constitutionalism and civil liberties, thesis Leyden 1973Google Scholar and Hondius, F.W., The Yugoslav community of nations, thesis Leyden, The Hague/Paris, 1968Google Scholar. See also, Dutch theses/A list of titles of theses submitted to Dutch universities, vol. 1 (1975) –, published by the Netherlands universities foundation for international cooperation, and the Catalogus van academische geschriften, published every two years by the Utrecht University library.

37. Thus a Soviet labour law encyclopedia contains articles on many different countries, but none on The Netherlands: Trudovoe pravo/EnsiklopediXeskij slovar, third edition, Moscow, 1969.

38. Such suprises usually come from the German Federal Republic. Occasionally English-language jurists are able to pierce the linguistic barrier, cf., for instance, Skarples, K.S., The legal uamework of judicial sentencing policy/A study based on the Dutch and English systems, Amsterdam, 1972.Google Scholar