030113 KU Law Crossing Borders (2024S)

The production of law does not only take place in the national framework. Throughout history, legal knowledge, norms and practices circulated between different countries, cultures and languages. Legal books were translated, codifications adopted and law was practised by persons who had studied abroad. In the course we will have a look at several historical examples of such processes of intercultural exchange in the field of law. We will ask about the contexts in which this took place and we will discuss theories that explain the law that emerged from such transfers. We will see that this helps not only to gain a better understanding of law's history, but also of law's present.