Call for Papers

September 19, 2022

Annual Comparative Law Work-in-Progress Workshop

January 19-21, 2023

University of Pennsylvania Law School

Announcement and Call for Papers

Co-organized and Co-Hosted by

Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton University)

Jacques deLisle (University of Pennsylvania Law School), and

Jacqueline Ross (University of Illinois College of Law)

The American Society of Comparative Law

Hosting institution for 2023:  University of Pennsylvania Law School

Co-sponsored by Princeton University, University of Illinois College of Law, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and the American Society of Comparative Law

We invite all interested comparative law scholars to submit a paper to the next annual Comparative Law Work-in-Progress Workshop, which will be hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Law School and held in-person in Philadelphia on January 19-21, 2023.

Submit papers to Jacques deLisle at jdelisle@law.upenn.edu. Please put “Comparative Law Workshop” in the subject line of your email. Papers must be submitted by November 18, 2022. We will inform authors of decisions by December 16, 202.

This annual workshop is a vital forum for colleagues in comparative law to explore and discuss works in progress in a serious and thorough manner that will be helpful to paper authors in developing and revising their work. “Work in progress” means scholarship that has reached a stage at which it is substantial enough for serious discussion and critique but has not yet been published (and can still be revised after the workshop, if it has already been accepted for publication.) Appropriate work for the workshop includes law review articles, book chapters, and other similar genres.  As is customary in the field, a “comparative law” paper need not be explicitly comparative; it may focus on the law of one non-U.S. jurisdiction.

Each paper author may submit only one paper.  Papers should be no more than 15,000 words (including notes), or, if the work is longer, authors should indicate (when submitting) which 15,000 word portion they would like to have read and discussed at the workshop.

Participants in the workshop will include the paper authors, designated commentators, faculty members of the host institutions, and a few other invited participants. The group will be small enough to gather around a large table and to allow sustained and in-depth discussion. The authors will not present their papers at the workshop. The papers will be distributed well in advance, and participants are expected to have read them before the workshop. (Authors whose papers are selected for discussion at the workshop are expected to have read, and be prepared to discuss, all of the papers.)  Two designated commentators will introduce and discuss each paper before opening the discussion to the other workshop participants.  Paper authors will then have an opportunity to respond and ask questions. Paper authors may seek publication  wherever they wish.

The principal goal of the workshop is to improve work before publication.  An additional goal of the workshop is to provide an opportunity for comparative lawyers to gather two days to talk shop, both in the paper-focused sessions and in more informal conversations. We hope that this will create synergy that fosters more dialogue, cooperation, and an increased sense of coherence for the discipline.

The Workshop is supported by the host school and the American Society of Comparative Law.