Abstract

LOPEZ-MEDINA, Diego. THE BIRTH OF MODERN COMPARATIVE LAW AS A GEOGRAPHIC SPACE AND A DISCIPLINE: BASIC INSTR UCTIONS FOR ITS USE AND UNDERSTANDING FROM LATIN AMERICA. Int. Law: Rev. Colomb. Derecho Int. [online]. 2015, n.26, pp.117-159. ISSN 1692-8156.  https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.il15-26.ndcm.

Domestic law is not isolated from foreign influence since it is part of a "transnational space of law", in which it takes part of a strongly hierarchical dialogue of experiences between the different legalsystems. Modern Comparative Law was born at the start of the 20th Century as a result of a moment of intense cosmopolitanism that also caused an impact on the geographical imagination and the mental maps of lawyers and the law discipline. This article aims to present and set in context that founding moment ofmodern comparative law. In order to do so, this article brings forth a theoretical interpretation of the methodological and substantive discussions carried out in the International Congress of Comparative Law, in Paris, 1900 (under the management of French professors Raymond Saleilles and Édouard Lambert). The article defends the position that, also by that time, a "transnational space of law" was being constituted. In said space the national sovereignties opened their legal systems to a dynamic influence process of comparative and foreign materials. Latin American countries, alongside other countries which were also undergoing intense modernization processes (such as Turkey and Japan), enthusiastically started to participate in the transnational space of law. Around the same time, the basic methods of modern comparative law were stabilized and many of its provisions are still dominant today. Finally, the article aims to explain to lawyers the basic constituting geography and the methodological protocols of modern comparative law, with a particular emphasis on the position and interests of Latin American legal systems in the foundation of comparative law as a space and discipline.

Keywords : cosmopolitanism; international law; comparative law; Urrecht; Weltrecht; comparative law methodology; legal insertion; transnational space of law; legal globalization; nineteenth century; congress of comparative law of1900; history of comparative law; legal colonization; legal decolonization.

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