Recommended prerequisite for participation in the module

Content, progress and pedagogy of the module

Today, the study and practice of law is no longer purely national. In scholarship, inspiration for new approaches to new and recurring legal problems is frequently sought in legal systems outside the comparatist’s own. Scholars and practitioners alike may be dealing with cross-border legal problems, or legal issues relating to national, regional and international interactions, where an ability to seek and understand solutions from pluralistic legal sources is necessary. This course aims to equip the students with basic skills to enable them to study and practice law in this setting.

To explore comparative law, the course entails three components: 1) The study of comparative law theory, including legal families and traditions; 2) the study of comparative law methodology, learning how to do a comparative law study, with a focus on functional comparative law and the function of rules; and, 3) the application of comparative law in a series of interactive seminars, focusing on solving comparative law problems.

Learning objectives

Knowledge

• Comparative law theory, including legal families and traditions, in Scandinavian, Germanic and Common Law, and a selected non-European family.

• Perspectives on comparative law methods, with a focus on functional comparative law.

• The significance and challenges of legal pluralism and comparative law in a global world.

Skills

• Use the terminology and concepts of comparative law.

• Identify comparative law problems and use functional comparative law, including identifying relevant sources of law.

• Identify potential challenges in using functional comparative law.

• Ability to conduct comparative law research, for example, to explore legal debates and legal policy in Denmark or in international law, and to work systematically with law.

Competences

• Identifying, analysing and discussing comparative law solutions to problems within the legal branches of private law, criminal law and public law (constitutional and administrative laws).

• Understanding the significance of legal families, traditions and cultures to comparative law.

• Understanding the embeddedness of legal rules within a legal system and comparing how different legal systems understand and interpret similar legal rules.

• Presenting a comparative law study of a legal problem.

Type of instruction

7 lectures of three hours each, supplemented by 4 interactive and problem-oriented seminars in the legal branches of private law, criminal law, and public law, and comparison across international / regional / national law..

Extent and expected workload

270 hours.

Exam

Exams