The Institute's European and Comparative Law Programme

The Institute's European and Comparative Law Programme was officially launched by Sir Francis Jacobs in his excellent Keynote Address at its Annual Conference on 16 June 2006.

About the Programme

The Programme combines the areas of European law and comparative law. Initially, comparative law was considered to be a useful instrument to get to know other legal systems and to put one's own system in an international perspective. The fruits of comparative law studies have long and mainly been of academic interest: they were considered to be very interesting but not immediately relevant to the daily life of the law.

Over the last decades comparative law has lost its innocence. It is becoming an important source for legislators, judges and lawyers, not only on a national but also on a European level. This evolution is strongly influenced by the process of European integration.

In Community institutions, such as the Council, the Commission and the Court-where lawyers from all Member States work closely together-law-making and solution-finding are activities in which all national legal backgrounds play a role. Recourse to comparative law has essentially become a method of interpretation of Community law itself. It is beyond doubt that the European Courts intensively use the available knowledge about the laws of the member States when developing Community law though this remains very implicit. Usually the courts confine themselves to general expressions like 'legal principles common to all or several Member States'. The Opinions of the Advocates-General, however, regularly contain comparative analyses.

Finally, most of the European Commission's research projects include extensive comparative surveys of the laws of the 25 Member States. The Institute has a longstanding tradition and a broad experience of conducting comparative research. Today, one of the Institute's missions-in moving freely over the boundaries that divide the fields of law and bringing out the underlying unities, as Lord Denning stated in 1952-is of major importance in the process of European integration.

The European and Comparative Law Programme brings together various research activities of the Institute, such as Competition Law, Financial and Company Law, Regulation and European Private Law, including Tort Law and Product Liability Law.

Other Research Projects and Conferences

In the area of European law and private international law the Institute conducts a major research project on the legalisation of public documents between Member States. This project is funded by the European Commission and the final report is due for early 2007.

In early 2006 Professor Cees van Dam completed a report for the Netherlands Ministry of Justice on the Liability of Regulators.

The Institute is also preparing several seminars and conferences to stimulate research in various areas of European and Comparative law:

Research Networks

With its European and Comparative Law Programme the Institute builds strong links with other European and comparative law research centres, in London, the United Kingdom and abroad. In particular the Institute cooperates with the Centre of European Law of King's College, London, the Centre for Commercial Law Studies of Queen Mary University London, and the Institute of European and Comparative Law in Oxford.

For more information on the Institute's European and Comparative Law Programme, please contact info@biicl.org.