Comparative Law’s Practice: Positions, Perspectives, and other Pitfalls

Following last year’s highly-stimulating lecture on Critical Approaches to Legal Comparison, Professor Günter Frankenberg returns to once again close out the LRM (Legal Research Methods) Initiative’s yearly Programme with a critical examination of modern comparative law practice. Building upon his introduction to comparative law’s taxonomic, functionalist, factualist, and structuralist methods, Professor Frankenberg’s upcoming presentation aims to take a deeper look into the wide array of means by which conventional comparative legal research and practice can conceal ideological, racial, gender, socio-economic, and ethnocentric biases. By summarising (what critics think) are the leading problems of the mainstream practice of legal comparison—and focusing on our society’s centre-periphery power disparity and how it can be resisted and overcome—Professor Frankenberg’s presentation will be of great interest to Max Planck Law researchers looking to move beyond sterile discussions of abstract methodological debates to enhancing our knowledge both of the pitfalls and possibilities of legal comparison.

Professor Dr Dr Günter Frankenberg is professor of public Law, legal philosophy, and comparative law at Goethe University, Frankfurt.