COMPARATIVE LAW AND THE CLAIM OF CAUSATION

Abstract

To accept that everything happens for a reason is to accept the connection between cause and effect that forms the basis of the notion of causation. Although causation or un lien de causalité has long been regarded as integral to the law on extra-contractual obligations, its use in the study of the development and status of comparative law in various legal systems has not been attempted. This article pursues a novel train of inquiry by claiming that the actual importance of comparative law to a legal system should be understood as a chain of events that culminate to inform the regard in which comparative law is held today. The claim of causation in comparative law posits that the history of engaging in comparative law in a legal system influences the type of scholarship on comparative law produced which in turn influences the pedagogy of comparative law. The veracity of this claim is tested by considering the history, scholarship and pedagogy of comparative law in selected legal systems in Europe and North America. This article then looks at several legal systems in Asia in one of which the claim of causation risks total displacement. Such an occurrence, far from defeating the claim of causation, reveals the difficulty of dissociating the pedagogy of comparative law (the effect) from its history and scholarship (the causes).