UCLA School of Law Professor Máximo Langer has been named president of the American Society of Comparative Law, the leading comparative law organization in the United States.

The ASCL was founded in 1951 with a mission “to promote the comparative study of law and the understanding of foreign legal systems; to establish, maintain and publish without a profit a comparative law journal; and to provide for research and the publication without profit of writings, books, papers and pamphlets relating to comparative, foreign or private international law.” Its membership includes the leading comparative legal scholars in the United States and beyond, and it publishes the American Journal of Comparative Law.

Langer rises to the position after co-heading UCLA Law’s efforts in hosting the ASCL’s 2020 annual meeting, which was recently held online over two days, Oct. 15-16. The summit included panels featuring 100 speakers from more than 20 countries, and about 400 people from six continents registered.

“To serve as president of the American Society of Comparative Law is among the greatest honors of my career,” Langer says. “I am excited to steer the ASCL through its next period of profound scholarly collaboration and impact, at a time in which the COVID-19 pandemic makes apparent the crucial need for and importance of comparative law and the mutual knowledge and understanding it can bring among legal systems, nations and peoples.”

A renowned authority in domestic, comparative and international criminal law and justice, Langer serves as director of UCLA Law’s Transnational Program on Criminal Justice and as faculty director of UCLA Law’s Criminal Justice Program. He received his LL.B. from the University of Buenos Aires Law School and S.J.D. from Harvard Law School before joining the UCLA Law faculty in 2003.