Comparative Law, Legal History and Law and Economics

Along with substantive law and the associated procedural laws, the Institute has also traditionally dealt with the fundamentals of methodology. The methodological approaches of international comparative law date back to the period of the Institute’s founding. Ernst Rabel, the first director of the Institute, is considered a pioneer of this discipline. Our research also focuses on interpreting the historical foundations of modern civil law.

In the analysis of matters of commercial law, it is especially indispensable to apply economic approaches and knowledge in company law and capital market law. The economic analysis of law is thus the subject matter of numerous projects.

Selected Research Projects

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

TopThema

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

Decolonial Comparative Law

Decolonial comparative law both identifies how the matrix of modernity/coloniality structures prevalent understandings of law and offers decolonial alternatives. Conventional comparative law rests on epistemic assumptions that emerge from the modernity/coloniality matrix and this has implications for a number of core presumptions or practices in comparative law. more