Bachelor 2024/2025

Introduction to Comparative Law

Type: Compulsory course (Jurisprudence: Digital Lawyer)

Area of studies: Law

Delivered by: School of Theory of Law and Comparative Law

Where: Faculty of Law

When: 2 year, 1, 2 module

Mode of studies: offline

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Dmitry Poldnikov

Language: English

ECTS credits: 3

Contact hours: 40

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This introductory course on comparative law theory is designed especially for undergraduate first-year students who are genuinely interested in studying foreign jurisdictions and legal systems and possess a solid knowledge of English but have an educational background limited only to the very first two modules of the first-year curriculum at the faculty of law. The course, first, discusses the nature of ‘traditional’ comparative law, its functions, aims, methods and history, then surveys the main features of the major legal families of the world (civil law, common law, non-Western legal traditions in Asia, mixed jurisdictions), then maps the world’s legal systems, and finally, it introduces basic research methods of traditional comparative law (that of R. David or K. Zweigert and H. Kötz) confronting them with extended methods of ‘postmodern’ comparative law (contextualised approach to legal systems and institutes). The course is targeted at first-year undergraduate law students who are expected to have successfully completed the undergraduate courses on foreign legal history and legal theory. Students are expected to learn essential legal English vocabulary through study of European and Russian legal history, listening to lectures, engaging in disputes, and preparing final written essay. The instructor proposes an interactive mode of giving lectures similar to readings in American law schools. Students are expected to read essential literature before attending lectures, they will be asked questions in order to check their comprehension. The syllabus will be accompanied with essential glossary. From the very beginning of their legal education students are encouraged to make use of the electronic resources of HSE, as many recommended papers are available at Jstor, Ebrary and other data bases. After completing the course students are expected to be able to: • define basic concepts of comparative law discipline; • explain how comparative law can be used to understand different legal systems of the world; • distinguish and identify key features and institutes of the major legal system (including mixed jurisdictions); • review and summarize recommended academic papers; • coherently state and reason one's own theses in English regarding the issues of the course.