Charting the Domain of Comparative Law: A Jurisprudential and Interdisciplinary Approach

The starting point of comparative law is often the detection of similar social problems in diverse legal orders. The question that arises is whether there are common features or, conversely, differences in the ways in which these problems are approached and handled. How can these similarities or differences be explained? Scholars today advocate broader approaches to the comparative study of legal systems – approaches that extend beyond the traditional ‘law as rules’ perspective, which is mainly concerned with the analysis and ordering of statutory enactments and court decisions while paying little attention to contexts that do not have a strictly practical nature. They recognize that law and the understanding of law involves much more than the description and analysis of statutory enactments and judicial decisions. Law cannot be fully understood unless it is placed in a broad philosophical, historical, social, political, and cultural context. This paper examines fundamental issues pertaining to the nature and scope of comparative law as a distinct discipline and discusses different theoretical approaches to its subject matter adopted by contemporary comparatists. The paper explores in particular the relationship between comparative law and other fields of legal study and seeks to elucidate the ways in which comparative law contributes to, benefits from, or overlaps with them.