Comparative Law: A Very Short Introduction

• 1: What is comparative law?


• 2: Classifying legal systems


• 3: Legal traditions


• 4: Methods and approaches


• 5: Sameness and difference


• 6: What for? The uses of comparative law


• Bibliography

Sabrina Ragone is a Professor of Comparative Law of the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Bologna, which she holds the post of Head of International Relations. She is also Senior Research Affiliate of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg), where she pursued her research between 2015 and 2017. Previously, she was García Pelayo Fellow at the Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales - Madrid (2012-2015) and researcher at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (2011-2012). She has held visiting positions in the USA (Boston College, Michigan Law School, Texas A&M), Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Germany, and France. She specialises in comparative methodology, constitutional adjudication, European, and Latin American constitutionalism.

Guido Smorto is a Full Professor of Comparative Private Law at University of Palermo, where he holds the EU Jean Monnet Chair in Comparative and European Digital Law. He has held research and visiting professor positions in several academic institutions in Europe, as well as in the US, Japan, and Latin America, and has written and edited articles and books in Italian, English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Catalan. He gives talks and lectures in Italy and abroad. Smorto specialises in private comparative law. His latest scholarly works focus mainly on comparative and European digital law. He is also Vice President of Società Italiana per la Ricerca nel Diritto Comparato (SIRD).