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Review of Annelise Riles (ed.), Rethinking the Masters of Comparative Law, Oxford & Portland/Oregon, Hart Publishing 2001. xii, 262 p. ISBN 1-84113-289-6, £ 40 (hardbound), ISBN 1-84113-290-X, £ 25 (paper), http://www.hart.oxi.net/bookdetails.asp?id=386&bnd=1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Ralf Michaels

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Type
Legal Culture
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , 01 April 2003 , pp. 411 - 417
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 The masters presented in this volume are all men.Google Scholar

2 See Pierre Legrand, Questions à Rodolfo Sacco, 47 Rev. int. dr. comp. 943 (1995); Legrand, John Henry Merryman and Comparative Legal Studies, 47 Am. J. Comp. L. 3-66 (1999); see also Ralf Michaels, Im Westen nichts Neues?, 66 RabelsZ 97, 98 (2002). For a comparatist's self-inspection see John Henry Merryman, The Loneliness of the Comparative Lawyer, in Merryman, The Loneliness of the Comparative Lawyer, 1-12 (1999).Google Scholar

3 Hermann Kantorowicz, Some Rationalism about Realism, 43 Yale L. J. 1240 (1934).Google Scholar

4 See his influential article: Der Kampf um die Rechtswissenschaft (published in 1906 under the pseudonym of Gnaeus Flavius and reprinted in: Rechtswissenschaft und Soziologie. Ausgewählte Schriften zur Wissenschaftslehre 13-39 (Thomas Würtenberger ed.1962).Google Scholar

5 See also Annelise Riles, Wigmore's Treasure Box: Comparative Law in the Era of Information, 40 Harv. Int'l. L. J. 221 (1999).Google Scholar

6 Gerber's own ideas about the directions comparative law should take can be found in David J. Gerber, System Dynamics: Toward a Language of Comparative Law, 46 Am.J.Comp.L. 719 (1998); Gerber, Globalization and Legal Knowledge: Implications for Comparative Law, 75 Tul. L. Rev. 949 (2001).Google Scholar

7 David, René, Traité élementaire de droit civil compare, 222-226 (1950); David, Les grands systèmes de droit contemporains.Google Scholar

8 On this, see also Michaels (supra n. 2) 100.Google Scholar

9 Rudolf Schlesinger (Gen. Ed.), Formation of Contracts – A Study of the Common Core of Legal Systems, 2 Vols., Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. & London (1968). The program and method have been explained in some more depth in Rudolf B. Schlesinger, The Common Core of Legal Systems – An Emerging Subject of Comparative Study, in: K. Nadelmann & al. (eds.), XXth Century Comparative and Conflicts Law – Legal Essays in Honor of Hessel E. Yntema, 65-79 (1961); Schlesinger & Bonassies, Le fonds commun des systèmes juridiques, 15 Rev. int. dr. comp. 501 (1963). On Schlesinger's life see also Ugo Mattei & Andrea Pradi (eds.), Rudolf B. Schlesinger, Memories (2000); Robert S. Summers, Professor Schlesinger's Memories, and a Bit More, 28/2 Cornell Law Forum 10-17 (2001).Google Scholar

10 Sacco, Rodolfo, Legal Formants. A Dynamic Approach to Comparative Law, 39 Am. J. Comp. L. 1 (1991). The article is an edited translation of the introduction of Rodolfo Sacco, Introduzione al diritto comparato, 1980 (The German translation was published in 2001 by Nomos, Baden-Baden, see especially pp. 13–151). See also P.G. Monateri & Rodolfo Sacco, Legal Formants, in 2 Peter Newman (ed.), The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law, 531 (1998). On Sacco's life, see also Legrand, Questions (supra n. 2); Rodolfo Sacco, Souvenirs d'un vieux comparatiste, 10 ZEuP 727 (2002).Google Scholar

11 See Frankenberg, Günter, Critical Comparisons: Re-thinking Comparative Law, 26 Harv. Int'l L.J. 411-455 (1985); Nathaniel Berman, Aftershocks: Exoticization, Normalization, and the Hermeneutic Compulsion, 1997 Utah L. Rev. 281-286.Google Scholar

12 Vivian Grosswald Curran, Romantic Common Law, Enlightened Civil Law: Legal Uniformity and the Homogenization of the European Union,” 7 Col. J. Eur. L. 63 (2001); see also Curran, Fear of Formalism: Indications from the Fascist Period in France and Germany of Judicial Methodology's Impact on Substantive Law, 35 Cornell Int'l L. J. .101, esp. 158 ff. (2002).Google Scholar

13 See Gordley, James, Myths of the Code Civil, 42 Am. J. Comp. L. 459 (1994).Google Scholar

14 See Reimann, Mathias, Historische Schule und Common Law – Die deutsche Rechtswissenschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts im amerikanischen Rechtsdenken (1993).Google Scholar

15 Whether this is really true for his earlier work is a different matter. Cf. K. Muscheler, Relativismus und Freirecht: Ein Versuch über Hermann Kantorowicz (184).Google Scholar

16 Formalism may be part of every (Western) law; see only Stanley Fish, The Law Wishes to Have a Formal Existence, in Fish, There's no such Thing as Free Speech …and it's a Good Thing too, 141-179 (1994).Google Scholar

17 Kantorowicz (supra n. 3) 1252-3.Google Scholar

18 See, for a parallel argument in a different context, Mitchel de S.-O.-l'E. Lasser, Do Judges Deploy Policy?, 22 Cardozo Law Review 863 (2001), criticizing Duncan Kennedy, A Critique of Adjudication (fin de siècle) (1997).Google Scholar

19 See for example, Kathryn Abrams, “Hearing the Call of Stories,” 79 Cal. L. Rev. 971 (1991); Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry, “Telling Stories Out of School: An Essay on Legal Narratives,” 45 Stan. L. Rev. 807 (1993). Peter Brooks / Paul Gewirtz (eds.), Law's Stories: Narrative and Rhetoric in the Law (1996); for criticism, Reinhard Zimmermann, Law Reviews - Ein Streifzug durch eine fremde Welt, in: R. Zimmermann (Hg.), Amerikanische Rechtskultur und europäisches Privatrecht, 87 ff (1995); English translation as Law Reviews: A Foray through a Strange World, 47 Emory L.J. 659 (1998) with further references. At the same time, there is a tendency in legal history towards the use of stories instead of legal texts, including the equal treatment of myths and factual report. See Marie-Theres Fögen, Römische Rechtsgeschichten (2001) (violently criticized, from a conservative standpoint, by Hans-Heinrich Jakobs: http://www.jura.uni-bonn.de/institute/roemr/Jakobs/Foegen.pdf); see also her foreword to the first issue of the new journal Rechtsgeschichte (Rg): Marie-Theres Fögen, Rechtsgeschichte – Geschichte der Evolution eines sozialen Systems, 1 Rg 14 (2002), http://www.martincolor.de/shop/artikel.php3?AUGN=2&AGN=2&PHPSESSID=a200d061a86d4da92a212ca3c88a0a08.Google Scholar

20 On the methods of the Trento project see, as “quasi-official” presentations, Mauro Bussani & Ugo Mattei, The Common Core Approach to European Private Law, 3 Colum. J. Eur. L. 339 (1997/98); Bussani & Mattei, Le fonds commun du droit privé européen, 52 Rev. int. dr. comp. 29 (2000) (largely a translation of the 1997/98 article); Mauro Bussani, Current Trends in European Comparative Law: The Common Core Approach, 21 Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 785 (1998); Ugo Mattei & Mauro Bussani (eds.), The Common Core of European Private Law – Essays on the Project (2002); see also http://www.jus.unitn.it/dsg/common-core/home.html.Google Scholar

21 Not all presentations at the conference made their way to the book. Thus, according to the program, Mitchel de S.-O.-L.E. Lasser spoke about Roscoe Pound (see Lasser, Synthetic Readings of Roscoe Pound's Jurisprudence, Global Jurist Frontiers: Vol. 1: No. 1, Article 3. http://www.bepress.com/gj/frontiers/vol1/iss1/art3; Lasser, Comparative Readings of Roscoe Pound's Jurisprudence,” 50 American Journal of Comparative Law (Issue 4, forthcoming 2002)), Bianca Tedeschi dealt with Lambert, and Marie-Claire Belleau compared Pound and Lambert. In addition, Bryant Garth presented his long-time collaborator, Mauro Cappelletti.Google Scholar