Fall 1999, 6

Rethinking the Masters of Comparative Law

The Second Annual Northwestern Law Faculty Conference

March 18, 2000, 9 a.m. at the Law School

Building upon the current renaissance of comparative law as a tool for understanding the globalization of legal institutions, the Second Annual Northwestern Law Faculty Conference will take a fresh and sophisticated look at nine legendary masters of the discipline- as people from different cultural and legal traditions engaged with one another in particular academic and institutional projects, as proponents of theories and ideas, and as intellectual legacies later interpreted and adopted by succeeding generations toward their own ends. Chaired by Assistant Professor of Law Annelise Riles, the aim of the conference is to propose new answers to questions such as what is comparative law, what are its roots, its relationship to other disciplines such as history, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy, and how has it contributed at different times and in different parts of the world to projects of legal reform.

The Speakers and Panels

Panel I: Foundations of Realism in Comparative Law, chaired by Dorothy Roberts, Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law; Commentators: Professor William Novak, University of Chicago School of Law and Professor David Kennedy, Harvard University School of Law

Max Weber- "Weber's Comparativism: Imperialism and the Antinomies of a Bourgeois Thinker" -- Speaker, Ahmed White
Roscoe Pound- "Pounding Home the Difference: Roscoe Pound's Comparative Construction of American Legal Identity" -- Speaker, Mitch Lasser
Edouard Lambert- "Edouard Lambert and the Problem of Unification of the Law" --Speaker, Bianca Gardella Tedeschi
Roscoe Pound and Edouard Lambert- "Cross Atlantic Fertilisation: Edouard Lambert and Roscoe Pound on Comparative Law" -- Speaker, Marie-Claire Belleau

Panel II: Functionalism in Comparative Law, chaired by Professor Steven Calabresi, Northwestern University School of Law; Commentators: Professor Mirjan Damaska, Yale University School of Law and Professor Mathias Reimann, University of Michigan School of Law

Rene David- "Rene David: Reconstructing Europe" -- Speaker, Jorge Esquirol
Ernst Rabel- "Ernst Rabel and Comparative Law Methodology: The Sculpting of Orthodoxy"--Speaker, David Gerber
Mauro Cappelletti- "Mauro Cappelletti and the Reinvention of Comparative Law in the 1960's" -- Speaker, Bryant Garth
Rudolph Schlesinger- "Rudolph Schlesinger and European Structural Comparativism: Where Was Comparative Jurisprudence After All and Why Some Successful American Academics Can Still Not See It" -- Speaker, Ugo Mattei

Panel III: Internationalism in Comparative Law, chaired by Professor Cynthia Bowman, Northwestern University School of Law; Commentators: Professor Frank Upham, New York University School of Lawand Professor Kunal Parker, Cleveland-Marshall School of Law

John Henry Wigmore- "John Henry Wigmore and the Encounter with Japanese 'Custom'", Speaker, Annelise Riles
Nobushige Hozumi- "Nobushige Hozumi: A Skillful Transplanter of Western Legal Thought to Japanese Soil" -- Speaker, Hitoshi Aoki
Abdel-Razzak Al-Sanhuri- "Sanhuri and the Comparativist Invention of Islamic Law" -- Speaker, Amr Shalakany