Comparative Law: Introduction to European Legal Traditions (1L)
Spring term, Block D
Th,F 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Visiting Professor Paolo Carozza
4 classroom credits LAW-16911A
This course is designed to provide an introduction to the methods of comparative law and to the principal features of the two most influential legal traditions of the world: the common law tradition of England and the Romano-Germanic tradition of continental Western Europe. After an introduction to background concepts and methods of comparative analysis, the course will examine the main institutions, actors, processes and organization of the common law and civil law traditions in Europe, and will consider also their relationship to the supranational law of the European Union and the European human rights system. The latter part of the course will take up a number of specific comparative exercises drawn from a variety of substantive areas of law that lend themselves to fruitful comparison between the European law and legal systems being studied and our own. Throughout the course, one major objective is to deepen our understanding of our own legal tradition, by heightening our awareness of its contingencies and particularities and making us more capable of critical self-reflection from the perspective of different, but related, legal traditions. Another theme is to reflect on the possibilities of and obstacles to the development of transnational law. This course is one of the 1L required international or comparative courses and only available to HLS first-year students.