The Enigma of Comparative Law: Variations on a Theme for the Twenty-First Century

Viewing the contested theme Comparative Law as an ‘Enigma’, this book explores its fundamental issues as sub-themes, each covered in two variations. After the Overture, the author pulls some strands together in the Intermezzo, uses a free hand in the Cadenza, and asks the reader to draw her own conclusions in the Finale. By this method two fundamentally opposed views are exposed in each Chapter. The what, why and how of comparative law, comparative law and legal education, comparative law and judges, and comparative law and law reform by transposition are explored. The author also examines current debates of comparative law such as law and culture, deconstruction of classifications, mixing systems, limits of comparability, convergence/non-convergence and ius commune novum.
By following this two-pronged approach, the book covers many important aspects of comparative law in a refreshing manner not seen in any other work. It is provocative and discursive, bringing together for the reader major developments of comparative law. The book ends by asking ‘Where are we going?’.

Esin Örücü, Ph.D. (1972), Higher Doctorate (1976) is Professor of Comparative Law, University of Glasgow (UK) and Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL). She is a Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. She has published extensively on Turkish law, mixed systems and transposition of law. She is the author of Critical Comparative Law: Considering Paradoxes for Legal Systems in Transition (1999), editor of Judicial Comparativism in Human Rights Cases (2003) and co-editor of Studies in Legal Systems Mixed and Mixing (1996) and Comparative Law in the 21st Century (2002).