Comparative legal studies have been haunted by many unresolved scholarly problems of a methodological and theoretical nature which too often continue to be ignored within the literature. The deficiencies in theory and method of comparative legal studies have rightly been often blamed for marginalisation of this subject in legal education and practice. The aim of the present article is to contribute to this general debate by identifying and then analysing certain deficiencies of approach to the task of comparing western and socialist legal systems and cultures. Our main preoccupation is to address critically the methodology of comparative law not only for its own sake but also in response to the challenge raised by Bell's recent claim that legal theory has much to learn from reflecting upon the issues raised by the comparative enterprise.

In this journal Harry McVea recently has asked ‘What's Wrong with Insider Dealing?’ One imagines that many readers will have thought the question rather supererogatory, but Mr McVea more than adequately shows that just this question is very live in many of the leading works on the economics of stock markets. One is here dealing with seminal works such as those of Easterbrook, Fischel, Hirshleifer and Manne which are identified with the discipline of financial economics as such. Mr McVea, in my opinion rightly, concludes that insider dealing is wrong, but does so in a way that I think is wrong headed, particularly in the way that one fears his conclusion will be interpreted by most readers of this journal. Though there is much that is admirable in Mr McVea's paper, his conclusion is uncompelling, and is so for a reason with which I think it important to take issue.

There are various angles from which the role of intention in the creation of proprietary rights can be approached. First, since proprietary rights are rights which are legally enforceable, rights which are established by a particular transaction or arrangement cannot take effect as proprietary rights unless the parties intend to create legal relations. So, even in a case where Y is in exclusive occupation of land owned by X and pays X a periodic sum in return for use of the land there is no tenancy - and no contractual licence - if the parties do not intend to enter legal relations.

The rules governing the acquisition of beneficial interests in family homes have generated a great deal of academic literature since their restatement, and apparent clarification, by the House of Lords in Lloyds Bank plc v Rosset. In what has become an all too familiar passage, Lord Bridge outlined the two methods by which such an interest can be acquired in the absence of writing. For a claimant to succeed under the first of these (the only one with which this article will be concerned), the court must be satisfied that there has been: (a) an ‘agreement, arrangement or understanding’ between the claimant and the legal owner to share the beneficial interest, evidenced by oral discussions between them; and (b) that the claimant has acted to her detriment, or significantly altered her position, in reliance on the agreement. If these requirements are satisfied the claimant will obtain an interest, according to Lord Bridge, by way of constructive trust or proprietary estoppel.

It is apt to say that Europe, or at least the Europe of the European Union, is currently experiencing a comparative moment. To quote from Nietzsche, ours is the ‘age of comparisons’. For the first time, the two legal traditions represented in Western Europe – known to anglophones as the ‘civil law’ and the common law - find themselves interacting with one another within a general legal framework, that of the Treaty of Rome. Of course, there has long been mutual influences and interferences. For instance, one can convincingly argue that the ancient common law was but a by-product of an earlier form of the civil law. In the words of Raoul van Caenegem: