Comparative Legal Studies

Catalog description

This course introduces students to the study of foreign legal systems. It will provide a broad overview of the institutional and conceptual organization of civil law legal systems, comparing them to their common law equivalents in the United States. Substantively, the course will focus on the different approaches to private law and procedure, criminal procedure, administrative law and constitutional law that characterize most contemporary European civil law jurisdictions. Methodologically, the course will teach the most important approaches for engaging in comparative legal analysis, so that students will be in a position to practice and critique them effectively.