The American Society of Comparative Law, Inc. (ASCL) is the leading organization in the United States promoting the comparative study of law. Founded in 1951, it is a thriving organization of more than 100 institutional sponsor members, both in the United States and abroad, and a growing number of individual members. It is a member in good standing of the American Council of Learned Societies and International Association of Legal Science.
The Society publishes The American Journal of Comparative Law, the outstanding American publication of scholarship on comparative law. It holds annual meetings at which comparative law scholars present research and critically examine important legal issues from a comparative perspective. In addition, it provides support to other scholarly conferences both in the United States and internationally that deal with comparative law. Each year, the Society’s Yntema Prize recognizes exceptional publications on comparative law by younger scholars. The Society also promotes the exchange of information and opinion among students of comparative law through its website.
In more formal terms, The American Society of Comparative Law, Inc. (originally incorporated as the American Association for the Comparative Study of Law, Inc.), is an organization of institutional and individual members devoted to study, research, and write on foreign and comparative law as well as private international law. The ASCL’s purposes, as set forth in 1951 in its original certificate of incorporation, are “to promote the comparative study of law and the understanding of foreign legal systems; to establish, maintain and publish without a profit a comparative law journal; and to provide for research and the publication without profit of writings, books, papers and pamphlets relating to comparative, foreign or private international law.” A nonprofit corporation, the ASCL welcomes gifts for any of its purposes, including support of The American Journal of Comparative Law.
The American Society of Comparative Law is associated with the International Academy of Comparative Law and participates in the Academy’s quadrennial Congresses bringing together experts in comparative law from around the world. The Eighteenth Congress was held in Washington, D.C. in 2010 and the society played a key leadership role in its organization. Furthermore, the Society often cooperates with its counterparts in other countries, including participation in the upcoming XXth International IACL Congress in Fukuoka, Japan (July 22-28, 2018).
Welcome to the ASCL!
