Comparative Law

Comparative law and foreign private law are the core topics of academic work undertaken at the Institute. The methodological approaches of international comparative law date back to the time of the Institute’s founding, and they remain a fundamental building block of Institute research. Institute scholars aim to determine the differences and similarities among the world’s legal systems. The resulting findings become the basis for proposals fostering a further development of the law. Many research projects also focus on interpreting the historical foundations of modern civil law.

Projects

Voluntary Sterilization – Legal Approaches in Comparative Perspective

Legal concepts regarding personhood privacy and private life

In many societies, voluntary sterilization is seen as problematic. Reservations manifest themselves in cultural and religious taboos, in ethical objections, and ultimately in state laws. But how do legal systems today defend the position that the genuine and self-reflected intention of an individual is insufficient to legally justify sterilization? With this comparative research project, we aim to illustrate the ways in which legal systems regulate voluntary sterilization. more

Biography and Demography.
The law of demographic structural change in comparative perspective

Family Laws in Flux

Japan and Germany are experiencing demographically driven structural transformation due to an aging population and declining birth rates. We aim to compare the impact of these changes on legal concepts and the role of Japanese and German law in coping with these changes. more

Adoption: Models, Motives, and Meanings

Family Laws in Flux

Legal systems that allow adoption thereby enable a legal redefinition of family. Such a process cannot be taken from granted. Looking back through history and around the world, we are confronted with a complex array of attitudes and legal concepts regarding adoption. more

Family affairs in comparative perspective

Legal concepts regarding personhood privacy and private life

The project makes the assumption that societies attribute different values to individualism and autonomy and understand them in different ways, which in turn influences a society’s perception and appreciation of privacy. At the same time, the comparative analysis undertaken will consider the effectiveness of available legal mechanisms protecting against violence in the respective jurisdictions and examine potential societal, cultural, and intra-legal hindrances. more

Decolonial Comparative Law

Decolonial comparative law identifies how the matrix of modernity/coloniality structures the prevailing understanding of law and offers decolonial alternatives – with coloniality meaning not merely colonialism, but rather the totalizing and universalizing mode of thought that underlies modernity. more

Rights of Nature

During the last two decades, the connections between nature, human beings, and law have become a relevant object of study around the globe. The constitutionalization of rights of nature in Bolivia and Ecuador, along with the recognition of the rights of rivers in New Zealand and Canada and of a lake in India are exemplary cases that have attracted the attention of legal scholars both in the Global North and South. more

Testamentary freedom versus family solidarity – What is the origin of the compulsory portion?

A deceased can by means of a testamentary will or an inheritance contract determine who is to inherit his or her property and to what extent. Where there is no last will, the rules of intestate succession apply. Yet the freedom of testation is limited. What is today known as the “compulsory portion” is based on a long tradition. more

Early marriage in the constitutional spotlight

September 02, 2021

In 2017, the Law to Combat Child Marriage came into force in Germany, preventing minors in Germany from entering into a marriage and rendering without effect marriages concluded by minors abroad. This law is now being subject to constitutional scrutiny. A team of academics led by Nadjma Yassari and Ralf Michaels has authored a comparative assessment for the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) that examines the phenomenon of early marriage in the context of various legal systems and cultures. more

A comparative study of partnership law

Private Law Gazette 1/2021 – Until recently, an examination of the field of partnership law would have led one to conclude that there were hardly any indications of an international orientation. "There was a genuine research gap," says Institute Director Holger Fleischer, who, with his working group on business and economic law, undertook a multi-year project to render a comprehensive panorama of comparative partnership law. more