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The Role of the Law Library of Congress
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2019
The main research responsibility of the Law Library of Congress is to serve as the research arm of the United States Congress for the study of the legal systems of other countries. The studies, reports, and briefings its specialists prepare provide a worldwide perspective to the Congress on particular legal issues. This type of work can generally be described as comparative law research.
1 Boswell's Life of Johnson quoted in Preface in K. Zweigert & H. Kötz, Introduction to Comparative Law (2d rev. ed. 1992), translated from the German by T. Weir.Google Scholar
2 Rodolphe Ja de Seife, Comparative Law: A Problem Solving Technique, 28 Chitty Law Journal 60 (1980).Google Scholar
3 Zweigert & Kötz, supra note 1, at 14.Google Scholar
4 Id. at 23. Zweigert & Kötz, however, note that the mere study of foreign law falls short of being comparative law. They state: “In 1937 the League of Nations produced a study of The Status of Women in the World, consisting merely of reports from different countries on their own solution of the problem. There was no real comparison of the solutions presented, and so at most one could call it descriptive comparative law. One can speak of comparative law only if there are specific comparative reflections on the problem to which the work is devoted. Experience shows that this is best done if the author first lays out the essentials of the relevant foreign law, country by country, and then uses this material as a basis for critical comparison, ending up with conclusions about the proper policy for the law to adopt which may involve a reinterpretation of his own legal system.” Id. at 6.Google Scholar
5 Linkins v. Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation, 187 F.2d 357, 360 (D.C. Cir. 1950). An interesting development in the United States is the rise of two different levels of common law, federal common law and state common law. This can lead to confusion and controversy, as exemplified by the division in the courts of which choice of law rule to apply for purposes of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. See In re Aircrash Disaster Near Roselawn, Ind., 948 F. Supp. 747, 753 (D.N.D.Ill., 1996).Google Scholar
6 de Seife, supra note 2, at 62.Google Scholar
7 Law Society Gazette 6 (Mar. 5, 1997).Google Scholar
8 Derbyshire County Council v. Times Newspapers Ltd. and others, 1993 1 All E. R. 1011 (H.L.).Google Scholar
9 Airdale NHS Trust v. Bland [1993] 1 All E.R. 821 [F.C.A., and H.L.).Google Scholar
10 On this subject generally, see I. Loveland, A Special Relationship? American Influences on the Public Law in the UK (1995).Google Scholar