Paris Congress

Raymond Saleilles was one of the driving forces behind the Paris International Congress of Comparative Law in 1900 (Congress). The idea behind this event was that organizing this conference in the framework of the famous Paris World Exposition would draw a broader international audience to the subject of comparative law.

The program of the Congress consisted of a scientific and a practical part, though more emphasis was placed towards the former. The four main goals of the Congress were as follows:

determine a methodology to analyse diverse legislation;
define the role of comparative methods in teaching law;
highlight the relevance of comparative law analysis for national legislation, judicial interpretation and international agreement;
discuss mechanisms for making foreign law more accessible.

Overall, the Congress was methodology-heavy, meaning that its main focus was to envision a way that would facilitate consideration of comparative law in practice (e.g. legal translation) and thus establish comparative law teaching within the university curriculum. No original scientific works of comparative law were discussed. Also, the Congress had a strong continental imprint. Though some jurists from England and the United States attended, common law was completely left out of the picture.

In retrospect, one can argue that the Congress marks the culmination as well as the end of the first phase of comparative law research. The main attributes of this phase are discovery and initial use of comparative law methods for drafting and eventually unification of laws. Comparative law was mostly seen as harmonization tool. In this context, with some distinct exceptions, mainly similar legal systems were considered and compared which essentially limited this kind of comparative law research to continental Europe and its laws.

Bibliography

David S. Clark, Centennial World Congress on Comparative Law: Nothing New in 2000?Comparative Law in 1900 and Today, 75 Tul. L. Rev., 871, 875-888 (2001).
Konrad Zweigert & Hein Kötz, An Introduction to Comparative Law (1998), p. 59.

When it comes to comparative law, the year 1900 marks a turning point. In the Summer of 1900, the Congress of Comparative Law took place in Paris, as an addendum to the World Exhibition. It is the starting point of a continuous stream of scholarly work on the functions and methods of comparative law.

Before the 1900 conference, comparative legal science* consisted of a patchwork of various bouts of research with comparative law elements to varying degrees. Thus, the ancient Greeks – Plato and Aristotle in particular – used comparative law for their philosophical elaborations on the ideal constitution. By contrast, the Romans did not deign foreign laws worthy of consideration for they were convinced of the absolute superiority of their own law. Subsequently, there were sporadic epochs of comparative law research, mostly in England, Germany, and France. Unfortunately, they lacked long-term academic impact and failed to establish comparative law teaching and research at universities.

The Paris Congress of 1900 set out to change this deplorable state of comparative legal science by first and foremost establishing it as a scientific discipline worthy of representation within universities. While the congress had its shortcomings (and I will discuss them in a later post), it still managed to create a momentum for comparative law up until this day. In particular, it prevented comparative law from falling behind in legal academia. Today, some comparative law is part of most university curricula – though comparative legal science is still not accorded the role that its relevance for law in general would warrant.

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* Comparative law as a practical harmonization tool has been used more continuously since the mid 19th century.

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Bibliography

Konrad Zweigert & Hein Kötz, An Introduction to Comparative Law (1998), pp. 48-62.

Paris International Congress of Comparative Law – Culmination and End of the First Phase of Comparative Law Research

Comparative Law Before and After 1900