The course intends to familiarize the students with the complex mosaic of Law around the Global World. And to understand that legal systems may have, and do have, for a variety of reasons, relevant similarities and important differences when placed in a comparative analytical perspective. The Students will be able to be introduced to comparative law methodology, functions, and levels of comparison. A focus will be placed on taxonomy efforts, which is a traditional tool in comparative law, namely but not solely regarding the common law legal family vis-à-vis the Roman-German one, exploring its main characteristics, sources of law, historical formation. Finally, as a vibrant and excelling revived field, comparative constitutional law will be addressed namely regarding taxonomies, constitutions classifications, and judicial mechanisms for the defence of the Constitution.

CILO-1: Students will be able to realize what is comparative law, its methodology, and its historical development, levels or modalities of comparison, purposes and functions. CILO-2: Students will be able to understand, describe and explain the variety of legal systems, especially regarding key concepts and its grouping into legal families/patterns/legal traditions. CILO-3: Students will be able to find out, describe and explain the main structural differences and similitudes in the above-said framework as well as understand and describe commonalities and differences brought up by the dynamics of action and contexts. CILO-4: Students will be able to discuss and apply meso-comparison centred in comparative constitutional law, and to demonstrate the usefulness of the use of the comparative law method in general and of comparative constitutional law in particular.