Dear Colleagues:

This letter is addressed chiefly to the representatives of the American law schools and other institutions that compose the American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL).  But it is also addressed to those who, for any reason, wish to know more about the ASCL and its missions.

Comparative law finds itself in a period of intensive self-reexamination in the United States.  With the passage of a generation of comparative law scholars who, by training or birth, took the legitimacy of the discipline almost for granted, American comparatists are asking more fundamental questions about the discipline than have been asked for many years.  The latest issue -- vol. 46, no. 4 -- of the American Journal of Comparative Law (which the ASCL proudly publishes) reflects the intellectual ferment that is taking place.

The sources of change are not merely generational, however.  Comparative law is appealing to a vastly wider group of scholars than in the past.  These scholars come to it with a correspondingly vaster range of intellectual backgrounds.  They seek to employ comparative law in aid of a vastly broader range of inquiries and geographic foci.  And they want to employ it in conjunction with a range of other challenging approaches -- law and economics, legal history, empiricism, to name just a few.  Sheer numbers alone -- the ASCL has close to 100 American law schools as members, with most of them having two representatives -- guarantee a more diverse community.

A related challenge stems from the very success of comparative law in "mainstreaming" itself.  More and more of us have difficulty determining who among our colleagues is a comparatist and who not.  This is because, as I have just mentioned, the range of modalities in the practice of comparative law is so much greater than it used to be.  Precisely because comparative law permeates the classroom and the pages of scholarly journals, it is no longer reducible to courses that bear its name or professors who teach and write in its name.

Comparative law is also challenged by the rapid development of the various branches of international law.  Problems of international trade, international contracts, international arbitration -- in sum, international economic law -- abound.  International human rights generates ever new institutional and substantive advances.  The ferment in international law can be illustrated in many other ways as well.  While these developments should provide the impetus for an ever more robust comparative law, the challenge of critically "marrying" comparative and international law is not to be underestimated.  We are long past the world when the field of conflict of laws could, by itself, be thought of as constituting the essential hinge between comparative and international law.

A moment's reflection will tell us, though, that the purposes  lying at the core of the comparative law discipline -- intellectual respect for differences, support for cross-border developments and facilitation of cross-border processes, the impetus for law reform -- are timelier than ever.

 The American Society of Comparative Law intends to meet these new challenges, while at the same time retaining the features that enabled it to advance the comparative law enterprise as vigorously as it has.  Innovative thinking begins with critical self-scrutiny.  And so it has with the ASCL.  The 1999 annual meeting at Georgetown Law Center will provide, in addition to an intellectually exciting scholarly program, an occasion for robust debate over a proposal for the most far-reaching structural and programmatic reforms in the Society's history.  The report of the ASCL Long-Range Planning Committee was submitted to the membership shortly before the 1998 annual meeting in Bristol, England (on the occasion of the International Congress of Comparative Law) but, in the interest of full debate and deliberation, final consideration of  the Committee's proposals has been deferred to the 1999 meeting, where final action is expected to be taken.  Resolutions and proposed by-law amendments will be circulated to all representatives of member institutions in early summer of 1999.

If anything resembling the Long-Range Planning Committee's recommendations are adopted, the ASCL will emerge yet a more diverse community with a more ambitious academic program.  Already in place -- ahead of this formal vote -- are two of the Committee's recommendations.  First, the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Comparative Law is naming an Executive Editorial Board, designed not merely to distribute the burdens of publishing the Journal, but also to capture the talents and breadth of vision of a larger number of persons.

Second, a standing Program Committee has been established to coordinate and help improve and diversify the scholarly portions of the ASCL annual meetings -- meetings that remain (alongside the Journal) the Society's principal undertaking.  The work of the Program Committee commences with the ASCL annual meeting for the year 2000, which will be held in conjunction with a special congress of comparative law chiefly sponsored by the International Association of Legal Science and Tulane University, with the co-sponsorship of both the ASCL and the International Academy of Comparative Law.  The occasion is the centennial of the First International Congress of Comparative law held in Paris, France, in the year 1900.  The committee will again play this role in connection with the 2001 annual meeting scheduled to be held at Stetson College of Law, in St. Petersburg, Florida, and again in 2003 when the annual meeting will be held yet elsewhere in the United States, possibly at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which has submitted a proposal to that effect.  (As is the custom in the quadrennial years during which the International Congress takes place, the 2002 meeting will be held at the Congress in Brisbane, Australia, just as was the 1998 meeting held in Bristol, England.  The ASCL will once again orchestrate the participation of U.S. comparatists in the world congress.)

Following these largely institutional reforms, the ASCL should next turn to the question of special projects.  The numbers and energy of the ASCL are now such that it can afford to perform more than its usual functions -- publication of the Journal, organization of annual scholarly meetings, organization of American participation in the world congresses of comparative law, liaison with overseas institutes of comparative law, championing comparative law in the workings of the ABA and the Association of American Law Schools, award of the Yntema Prize for outstanding scholarship.  Debate over such projects will be launched at the 1999 annual meeting in connection with discussion of the Long-Range Planning Committee's recommendations.
 
This is both a challenging and auspicious time for the American Society of Comparative Law, and for comparative law more generally.  I invite the representatives of the member law schools and other ASCL members to lend their ideas and energy to the process of renewal that is afoot.

George A. Bermann
President, American Society of Comparative Law
Beekman Professor of Law and Director, European Legal Studies Center
Columbia University School of Law

By all reports, the Society's 1997 Annual Meeting at the University of California's Davis School of Law and the Symposium on Codification in the Twenty-First Century went very well indeed. I greatly regret that, at the last moment, a family illness made it impossible for me to attend. I surely speak for all of you who were in Davis in expressing the Society's thanks to Dean Wolk, Professor Juenger, and all those who assisted them in planning and providing such gracious hospitality and excellent intellectual fare.

The Society's next rendezvous will be in Bristol, England, on the occasion of the International Academy of Comparative Law's XVth International Congress of Comparative Law. The Academy's program is of great interest and variety. A splendid schedule for the Congress, including a day's excursion to the Cotswolds, has been arranged by the United Kingdom National Committee of Comparative Law. Bristol will clearly be worthy successor to Athens. We shall all, I hope, meet there.

Responding to the thoughtful discussion that took place at Davis, after consultation with the Executive Committee, in October I constituted a Long Range Planning Committee to consider the Society's structure, goals, and rôle. Selecting the members was not an easy task. I have tried to include, inter alia, a wide range of views, experiences, subject matters, and cultural and sociological interests. The Committee will, I am sure, welcome comments and suggestions from all who are committed to the comparative-law enterprise.

George Berman will chair the Committee. We have agreed that an Interim Report will be prepared for submission to the Executive Committee by March 15, 1998. A Final Report should be ready for distribution to the Society's members by April 27. Action on it will be taken during the Bristol Meeting. The Committee members are:

George Bermann (Columbia: 212-854-7946)
David Clark (Tulsa: 918-631-2194)
Frances Foster (St. Louis: 314-977-3966)
David Gerber (Chicago-Kent: 312-906-5280)
Michael Gordon (Florida: 352-392-3005)
Hillary Josephs (Syracuse: 315-443-4141)
Mathias Reimann (Michigan: 313-936-3884)
John Reitz (Iowa: 319-335-9019)
Joachim Zekoll (Tulane: 504-865-6748)

All would appreciate your ideas for, and reflections on, the Society's mission and future.

May I close by wishing each of you a most joyous holiday season and a happy and prosperous New Year.

Arthur von Mehren

Dear Colleagues,

As I look forward to the 15th International Congress of Comparative Law, to be held in Bristol, England, from July 26 to August 1, 1998, I muse occasionally — as I am sure do many of you — on the current state of comparative law scholarship.

The increase in the amount and the range of foreign and comparative law writing and teaching in the United States in the last fifty years has been phenomenal. Economic and political developments as well as a deepening interest among jurists generally in the history, philosophy, and sociology of law has invigorated both individual and institutional interest in the comparative enterprise.

As foreign and comparative law study in terms of range and information requirements become increasingly demanding and difficult, the question arises whether a generalist approach is still feasible: The fragmentation of comparative scholarship increases; the discipline's generally shared body of knowledge becomes ever smaller. Those who consider committing themselves to comparative scholarship realize that the task is daunting; many will choose to undertake scholarship in a field whose contours are clearer and whose domain is more manageable. It may well be that in the future, foreign and comparative law scholarship will find that centers or institutes which can provide skilled research assistance are indispensable.

Contemplating the scale and complexity of the problems created by a rapidly changing global economy and society for legal research and analysis, one can be excused for feeling at times nostalgia for a more manageable past as well as concern that more and more comparative scholarship will face challenges that it may be unable to meet.

As you all know, from September 25 to September 27, the Society will hold its annual meeting in Davis. Our former President — Professor Friedrich Juenger — has arrange an outstanding program.

On September 25, before the Davis meeting begins, a gathering will be held at the Hastings College of Law, University of California in memory of Professor Rudolph Schlesinger who died last November. Professor Schlesinger was a distinguished scholar and teacher of comparative law. His colleague, Ugo Mattei, recently published an article, which he had discussed with Professor Schlesinger shortly before the latter's death, entitled Three Patterns of Law: Taxonomy and Change in the World's Legal Systems, 48 Am. Journ. Comp. Law 5-44 (1996). Professor Mattei seeks to develop approaches and categories that will make the increased complexity and variety of contemporary law amenable to general comparative analysis. The problem was one that deeply interested Professor Schlesinger as his two volume work on Formation of Contracts — A Study of the Common Core of Legal Systems (1968) testifies. He contributed a great deal to comparative and foreign law scholarship and will be long remembered for his scholarship and his humanity.

Arthur von Mehren

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