Comparative and Foreign Law Area

The study of comparative and foreign law emerges from the wide variety of transactions and disputes ranging from business transactions to child custody arrangements to organized crime that are affected by the laws of one or more foreign jurisdictions. Subsequently, the field took on important comparative considerations in constitutional law and other matters of public administration. In all of these domains, there are also important intellectual reasons to study foreign legal systems. The study of foreign and comparative law also furthers or supports the understanding of possible common normative & structural elements underlying or shared by different systems of positive law, which may sometimes be understood as natural law, humanity law or ius gentium. Some courses in comparative law deal with the foreign law of a particular jurisdiction, region, or religion or compare international and foreign rules with respect to a particular topic (such as courses on international and comparative antitrust or comparative intellectual property). These courses are designed to help students become familiar with foreign laws and how they interact, develop competency in foreign legal cultures, understand why those laws might differ from the laws of the United States or from one another, and consider the implications of those differences. Others look at common sets of problems in different national contexts, such as the protection of minority rights or the separation of powers. Not all courses seek to achieve all of these outcomes.