Every instructor of a comparative law survey course is invariably confronted with one major challenge:
Of course, real familiarity with a legal system can only fully be obtained by living and immersing oneself in a particular legal culture. Yet, embarking on a semester-long field trip to the different legal cultures of the world is unfortunately no option.
Having said that, it is a given that the study of legal systems from a textbook alone will only provide students with a theoretic, unattached and cursory knowledge of different legal systems. Such an outcome is profoundly unsatisfactory and runs counter the basic goal any comparative law survey course should have: i.e. demonstrating students how law works in foreign countries, how the legal culture is embedded in society and what the legal profession looks like. Such information is unlikely to be drawn from a textbook alone …
In order to address this issue, Professor Dellapenna introduces a creative approach. In his article Peasants, Tanners and Psychiatrists: Using Films to Teach Comparative Law [available here], he explains how the right choice of films can help students visualize a foreign legal culture.
Professor Dellapenna then continues by presenting the six films that he finds especially useful:
- The Return of Martin Guerre (France)
- Dingaka (South Africa)
- The Story of Qiu Ju (China)
- A Question of Silence (Netherlands)
- The Conviction (Italy)
- The Red Corner (USA&China)
And while one can, certainly, argue about the right choice of films (a choice that will primarily depend on the main focus of the course), Professor Dellapenna’s short description of his film choices gives a basic idea on how and to what extent films can be employed in a comparative law course.
When it comes to accessibility of foreign law, several alternatives to showing films come to mind: e.g. watching TV trials that are now shown in many countries, or having students actively research and perform the handling of a case in a foreign legal culture (like a mini-moot-court) etc.
Whatever the exact choice of teaching medium might be, every instructor of a comparative law survey course should keep in mind the practical limitations.
If you are a comparative law instructor and you have any input on this issue, please feel free to leave a comment below.
P.S. (Feb. 5, 2009): I had post factum to reformat the first paragraph because everything got screwed up with the prior formatting. The content, however, has remained the same … sorry about that.
