2020 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Comparative Law


Comparative Legal History

The American Society of Comparative Law—with the support and co-sponsorship of the UCLA School of Law International and Comparative Law Program and the Transnational Program on Criminal Justice—held its 2020 Annual Meeting entitled Comparative Legal History online October 15-16, 2020.

Comparative historical analysis is part of a long-standing tradition, prominent in political science, economics, and anthropology. Indeed, among the most influential social scientists of all time one finds a large number of scholars who have used the comparative-historical method. Legal scholars have also relied extensively on comparative historical analysis, producing a body of research that is impressive in depth and scope. However, there has been little dialogue between comparative law experts and historians. More generally, a systematic discussion of the methods and goals of comparative legal history is virtually absent. This omission is unfortunate because comparative historical analysis provides tools that are critical to the understanding of legal institutions and legal change. The comparison of legal ideas and institutions across time and space promises three distinctive benefits. First, comparative legal history has explanatory value, illuminating causal connections. Further, comparative legal history helps de-naturalize existing legal institutions. Finally, comparative legal history fosters legal innovation, delivering instructive and sometimes applicable lessons about the analytics of law or its implementation.

The American Society of Comparative Law's 2020 annual program delved more deeply into the relationship between comparative history and comparative law. The program included two plenary sessions. The first plenary panel was entitled "What is the Relationship between Comparative Law and Legal History?" The second plenary panel was on "Comparative Legal Histories".

In addition, the meeting included concurrent panels on a variety of comparative law topics.

The meeting also held a hot topic panel on "Comparative Law, COVID-19 and Racial Justice".

About the American Society of Comparative Law

The American Society of Comparative Law, Inc. (ASCL) is the leading organization in the United States promoting the comparative study of law. Founded in 1951, it is a thriving organization of more than 100 institutional sponsor members, both in the United States and abroad, and a growing number of individual members. The Society publishes The American Journal of Comparative Law, the outstanding American publication of scholarship on comparative law, holds annual meetings at which comparative law scholars present research and critically examine important legal issues from a comparative perspective, and provides support to other scholarly conferences both in the United States and internationally that deal with comparative law.

Program

  • October 15, 2020

    Opening of the On-Line Conference

    Link to video

    1. Jennifer L. Mnookin, Dean and Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
    2. Richard Kay, President of the American Society of Comparative Law
    3. Máximo Langer, Chair of the Annual Program Committee and Vice-President of the American Society of Comparative Law

    First Plenary Panel: "What is the Relationship between Comparative Law and Legal History?"

    Link to video (includes opening of conference)

    1. Stuart Banner (chair), Norman Abrams Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
    2. Helge Dedek, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University
    3. Tamar Herzog, Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor, Department of History, Harvard University
    4. Sherally K. Munshi, Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown Law Center, Georgetown University
    5. James Q. Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law, Yale Law School

    Concurrent Panels on any Comparative Law Topic

    YCC Panel: Comparative Constitutional Law (Antonia Baraggia, Chair)

    Link to video

    1. Eszter Bodnár, Associate Professor, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Comparative Law in the Practice of the European Court of Human Rights – Beyond the European Consensus
    2. Michael Da Silva, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Law and Institute for Health and Social Policy, McGill University, Defeasibility and the Value of Rights, Or: American Jurisprudence Through the Comparative Theorist's Eyes
    3. Ioannis Kampourakis, Postdoctoral Associate, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford and Postdoctoral Fellow, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Tel Aviv University, Protecting National Security Whistleblowers in the U.S. and in the ECtHR: The Limits of Balancing and the Social Value of Public Disclosures
    4. Emre Turkut, Doctoral Researcher, Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI), Ghent University and DAAD Visiting Fellow, Centre for Fundamental Rights, Hertie School, Emergency Powers, Constitutional (Self-) Restraint and Judicial Politics: The Turkish Constitutional Court in an Authoritarian Setting

    Foreign Language Panel: “Développements récents en droit français” (this session will be held in French)

    Link to video

    1. Olivier Dutheillet de la Mothe, former member of the Constitutional Council of France.
    2. Vivian Curran (chair), Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Pittsburg School of Law.

    Comparative Constitutional History

    Link to video

    1. Catherine Andrews, Professor, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) (Mexico)
    2. Francesco Biagi, Senior Assistant Professor of Comparative Public Law, University of Bologna
    3. Justin Collings, Associate Dean for Research and Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, Brigham Young University
    4. Justin Frosini, Associate Professor of Law, Bocconi University
    5. Jason Mazzone (chair), Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Professor of Law and Director, Program in Constitutional Theory, History, and Law, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

    The Nature and Purpose of Comparative Legal History

    Link to video

    1. Dirk Heirbaut, Director of the Department of Legal Theory and Legal History, University of Ghent
    2. Aniceto Masferrer, Professor of Legal History and Comparative Law, University of Valencia
    3. Ulrike Muessig, Chair of Civil Law and of German and European Legal History, University of Passau
    4. Mortimer Sellers (chair), Regents Professor and Wilson H. Elkins Professor, University System of Maryland and Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law, University of Baltimore

    Models of Comparative Legal Practice in the British Empire

    Link to video

    1. Ron Harris, Kalman Lubowsky Professor of Law and History, Tel-Aviv University, Faculty of Law, The First Globalization, the Expansion of Company Law to the British Empire, and the Emergence of the Multinational Corporation
    2. Assaf Likhovski, Professor of Law and Legal History, Tel Aviv University, Faculty of Law, Western Jurisprudence in the British Empire, 1900-1940
    3. David Schorr (chair), Senior Lecturer, Tel Aviv University, Faculty of Law, The Environment as a Factor in the Adoption and Rejection of the Common Law of Waters in the British World
    4. Jessica Apolloni, Assistant Professor of English Literature, Christopher Newport University, Examining Comparative Legal Histories in Literature at Early Modern Inns of Court

    Comparative Legal History

    Link to video

    1. Lukasz Jan Korporowicz, Assistant Professor, University of Loz Faculty of Law and Administration, Thomas Bever – Eighteenth-Century English Comparative Lawyer
    2. Agustín Parise, Associate Professor, Maastricht University Faculty of Law, A Transatlantic and Transystemic Dialogue for the Development of Comparative Legal History: Exploring the Endeavours of John H. Wigmore and the Committee on Legal History of the AALS (1905-1927)
    3. Michael H. Hoeflich, John H. & John M. Kane Distinguished Professor of Law, Kansas University School of Law, Language, Scholarship & the Fate of Comparative Legal History in the United States: 1800-2000
    4. Frank Gevurtz (chair), Distinguished Professor of Law, University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, A Comparative Historical View of the Business Corporation

    Second Plenary Panel: "Comparative Legal Histories"

    Link to video

    1. Anna di Robilant (chair), Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, & Engagement, and Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law
    2. Lauren Benton, Barton M. Biggs Professor of History and Professor of Law, Yale University
    3. Ariela Gross, John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History, USC Gould School of Law.
    4. Marie Seong-Hak Kim, Professor of Legal History, Department of History, St. Cloud State University
    5. H. Timothy Lovelace Jr., John Hope Franklin Research Scholar Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law.

    Concurrent Panels on any Comparative Law Topic

    Book Event: Constitutional Statecraft in Asian Courts: A Discussion

    Link to video

    1. Author Yvonne Tew, Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
    2. Rosalind Dixon, Professor of Law, University of New South Wales, Faculty of Law
    3. Tom Ginsburg, Leo Spitz Professor of International Law, University of Chicago Law School
    4. Jamal Greene (chair), Dwight Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
    5. Ran Hirschl, Professor of Political Science and Law, University of Toronto

    Comparative Imperial Law

    Link to video

    1. Gregory Ablavsky, Associate Professor of Law and Professor (by courtesy) of History, Stanford University
    2. Christian Burset (chair), Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame
    3. Will Smiley, Assistant Professor of Humanities, University of New Hampshire
    4. Nurfadzilah Yahaya, Assistant Professor of History, National University of Singapore

    From Symbolism to Substance: Comparative and Transnational Perspectives on #MeToo and Gender Based Violence

    Link to video

    1. Penelope Andrews, Professor of Law, New York Law School and President, Law and Society Association
    2. Brenda Cossman, Goodman-Schipper Professor of Law, University of Toronto and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
    3. Teri McMurtry-Chubb, Professor of Law, UIC John Marshall Law School
    4. Rachel Van Cleave (chair), Professor of Law, Golden Gate University School of Law and J. William Fulbright Research Scholar, La Corte Suprema di Cassazione, Rome, Italy (Spring 2021)

    Legal Heterodoxy in Developing Countries

    Link to video

    1. Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law
    2. Kevin Davis (chair), Beller Family Professor of Business Law, New York University School of Law
    3. Vic Khanna, L. Bates Lea Global Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law
    4. Mariana Pargendler, Professor of Law, Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) Law School, São Paulo
    5. Taisu Zhang, Professor of Law, Yale Law School

    Chinese Legal History in a Comparative Context
    Roundtable 1: Adjudication and the Legal Profession

    Link to video

    1. Li Chen, Associate Professor of History, Global Asia Studies and Law, University of Toronto
    2. Alex Wang (Chair), Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
    3. Zhiqiang Wang, Professor of Law and Dean, Fudan University Law School
    4. Chenjun You, Associate Professor, Renmin University Law School
    5. Ting Zhang, Assistant Professor of History, University of Maryland
  • October 16, 2020

    Business Meeting of the American Society of Comparative Law (only for ASCL members).


    Hot Topic Panel "Comparative Law, Covid-19 and Racial Justice

    Link to video

    1. Dominique Day, Chairperson of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations
    2. Neysun A. Mahboubi, Research Scholar, Center for the Study of Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania
    3. Nneoma Nwogu, Senior Legal Counsel at the World Bank and Covid-19 Taskforce.
    4. Mila Versteeg, Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law, Director, Human Rights Program, University of Virginia School of Law.
    5. Fernanda Nicola (chair), Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law.

    Concurrent Panels on any Comparative Law Topic

    Book Launch (co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Europe at Boston University)

    Link to video

    1. Author Mitchel Lasser, Jack G. Clarke Professor of Law, Director of Graduate Studies, and Co-Director, Cornell Summer Institute of International and Comparative Law, Judicial (Dis-)Appointments: Debating Judicial Independence and Judicial Quality at the ECJ and the ECtHR (forthcoming from Oxford University Press)
    2. Author Antoine Vauchez, CNRS Research Professor, Université Paris 1-Sorbonne, The Neoliberal Republic: Corporate Lawyers, Statecraft, and the Making of Public-Private France (forthcoming from Cornell University Press)
    3. Quinn Slobodian, Associate Professor of History, Wellesley College
    4. Fernanda Nicola, Professor, American University Washington College of Law
    5. Daniela Caruso (chair), Professor of Law, Jean Monnet European Union Professor, Boston University School of Law.

    Comparative Law Studies in Context: The Challenges and Opportunities of Translation

    Link to video

    1. Pia Letto-Vanamo, Professor of Law and Dean, University of Helsinki Faculty of Law, Defining Past Phenomena with Current Concepts – A Dilemma of a Legal Historian
    2. Vernon Valentine Palmer, Thomas Pickles Chair, Co-Director, Eason Weinmann Center for Comparative Law, Tulane Law School, Living off Translations: The Survival of Civil Law in South Africa and Mixed Jurisdictions
    3. Markus G. Puder, The Honorable Herbert W. Christenberry Professor of Law and Faculty Director, LL.M. Program, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, A Call for Recognizing the Place of Law-and-Language in Legal Comparativism
    4. Lécia Vicente (chair), Henry Plauché Dart Endowed Assistant Professor, LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center, The Promise of Sustainable Development through Global Connections and Cultural Ruptures: East-Central Europe and South-Central Africa Compared

    Theorizing Comparative Rights Jurisprudence

    Link to video

    1. Peter Danchin, Professor of Law and Co-Director of International and Comparative Law Program, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, Antinomies of Religious Freedom: A Comparative Reading of Egyptian and European Court of Human Rights Jurisprudence
    2. Helge Dedek, Associate Professor, McGill University Faculty of Law, When Rights Became Subjective: Two Centuries of "Subjective Rights"
    3. Talya Ucaryilmaz, Visiting Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Laesio Enormis From Byzantino-Roman Law to Ottoman Mecelle: A Comparative Study
    4. Ioanna Tourkochoriti (chair), Lecturer, NUI Galway School of Law, Freedom of Speech: an Inquiry into the Philosophical Foundations of American and French Legal Thought

    The Demise of American Exceptionalism? The Trump Presidency in Comparative and Historical Perspective

    Link to video

    1. Mark Graber, University System of Maryland Regents Professor, University of Maryland, Born Populist? The Trump Administration and the Constitution
    2. Kim Lane Scheppele, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs and in the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University, and David Pozen, Charles Keller Beekman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School, Failing to Act: Executive Underreach in Comparative Perspective
    3. Miguel Schor (chair), Professor of Law, Drake University College of Law, The Trump Presidency and the Challenges to Three Political-Constitutionalist Orthodoxies.
    4. Ralf Michaels, discussant, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, Global Law Professor at Queen Mary, Professor of Law at Hamburg University

    Gender, Religious and Political Oppression and Comparative Law

    Link to video

    1. Oren Gross, Irving Younger Professor of Law and Affiliated Faculty at the Center for Jewish Studies, University of Minnesota Law School, Hitler's Willing Law Professors
    2. Colleen Graffy, Associate Professor of Law, Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, British Influence on the First Women Lawyers in America
    3. Rossella Bottoni, Associate Professor of Law and Religion at the Faculty of Law, University of Trento, and Cristiana Cianitto, Associate Professor of Canon Law and Comparative Law of Religions at the Department "Cesare Beccaria", University of Milan, founding member of ICLARS and general coordinator of secretariat, The Legal Treatment of Religious Dissent in Western Europe, 1789-1964: a Comparative Overview
    4. Sital Kalantry (chair), Clinical Professor of Law, Cornell Law School, Reverse Legal Transplants

    Comparative and Transnational Criminal Law and Procedure and Comparative Methodology

    Link to video

    1. Jacqueline Ross (chair), Prentice H. Marshall Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law, Undercover Policing and State-building in the nineteenth century United States and France
    2. Isaac Amon, The Past Is Not Dead: A Comparative Approach to Confession in Criminal Cases
    3. Claudia Passarella, Postdoctoral Fellow in Legal History, University of Padova, An 'Exotic Transplant' or the 'Bulwark of Freedom'? The Italian Jury System Between English Experience and French Tradition
    4. Kevin E. Davis, Beller Family Professor of Business Law, New York University School of Law, What Should Comparative Law Compare? Insights from the Caribbean

    Concurrent Panels on any Comparative Law Topic

    The F-Word in Middle East Constitutional Discourse: Federalism and Decentralization as Frameworks for Self-Determination in the Middle East and North Africa

    Link to video

    1. Aslı Ü. Bâli, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
    2. Sujit Choudhry, Guest Researcher, WZB Berlin Social Science Centre & Director, Center for Constitutional Transitions
    3. Omar M. Dajani (chair), Professor of Law, McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific
    4. Omar Y. Shehabi, JSD Candidate, Yale Law School

    World War II at Seventy-five: Litigation, History, Memory

    Link to video

    1. Michael Bazyler, Professor of Law, Chapman University
    2. Michael A. Livingston, Professor of Law, Rutgers University
    3. Kristen Nelson, Of Counsel at ALC Lawyers PC, and Adjunct Professor, Gratz College
    4. Timothy Webster (chair), Associate Professor of Law, Western New England University

    The Interplay between Comparative, Transnational and International Law

    Link to video

    1. Elaine Fahey, Jean Monnet Chair in Law & Transatlantic Relations, Institute for the Study of European Law (ISEL), City Law School, City, University of London, The Future and Past EU Institutionalisation: Comparative Historical Perspectives
    2. Yuliya Guseva (chair), Professor of Law, Principal Investigator of the Blockchain and Fintech Program, Rutgers Law School, and Douglas Eakeley, Lowenstein Professor of Corporate and Business Law, Co-Director of the Center for Corporate Law and Governance, Rutgers Law School, Crypto-Enforcement Around the World
    3. Juscelino Filgueiras Colares, Schott-van den Eynden Professor of Business Law, Professor of Political Science, Co-Director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, The Consistently Inconsistent, GATT-Violating EU Labeling of Israeli Food Imports
    4. Hao Jiang, Assistant Professor of Comparative Private Law, Department of Legal Studies, Bocconi University; Visiting Professor, Tulane Law School, Promises and Perils of the Chinese Civil Code: A New Civil Law in the Making

    Comparison Of The U.S. and China's Corporate And Security Law

    Link to video

    1. Zhaoyi Li (chair), JSD Candidate, Washington University in St. Louis
    2. James Si Zeng, Assistant Professor of Law, the Chinese University of Hong Kong
    3. Xiaochen Zhang, Ph.D. Candidate, China University of Political Science and Law; Lecturer, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics

    International Legal History: Comparativism as Critique

    Link to video

    1. Işıl Aral, Assistant Professor of International Law, Koç University
    2. Yang Liu (chair), Assistant Professor of Law, Renmin University of China
    3. Kangle Zhang, Postdoctoral Fellow, Peking University School of Law

    Chinese Legal History in a Comparative Context
    Roundtable 2: Economic Regulation

    Link to video

    1. Shuang Chen, Associate Professor, University of Iowa, Department of History
    2. Peng-sheng Chiu, Professor, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Department of History
    3. Fei-hsien Wang, Associate Professor, Indiana University, Department of History
    4. Taisu Zhang (chair), Professor, Yale Law School

YCC Ninth Annual Conference After ASCL Annual Meeting

The Younger Comparativists Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law held its Ninth Annual Conference online on October 17, 2020. All are welcome to attend.

The program is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18RtWJCGGIUQq0_vVXtUcqWGlBhavEb-C/view?usp=sharing

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