2025 Annual Meeting: The Paris Congress at 125: Comparative Law’s Entanglement with Power from Paris to Today
2025 Annual Meeting: The Paris Congress at 125: Comparative Law’s Entanglement with Power from Paris to Today
October 16–18, 2025
McGill University Faculty of Law Quebec
It has been said that the Paris Conference of 1900—often regarded as the mythical founding moment of modern Comparative Law—was animated by a spirit of idealism, the belief that thinking beyond national borders could contribute to human progress. Such humanitarian idealism found renewed expression after the Great War, when the International Academy of Comparative Law was established to complement the League of Nations.
Yet even the published proceedings of the Paris Conference reveal another dimension of Comparative Law: its entanglement with power in an era of imperialist expansion, an entanglement that was perhaps not an aberration but the flipside of idealistic universalism itself. Indeed, throughout its history, Comparative Law has not been confined to the ivory tower but has been an ally of power—and, more than once, its accomplice, as underscored, for example, by the recent work of James Whitman.
This annual meeting takes its inspiration from the stories we tell ourselves about Comparative Law—its origins, its legacy—and, specifically, the fact that this entanglement with power in varying historical contexts is often absent from our foundational narratives.
Representatives from official ASCL Member Schools who attend the Business Meeting on Saturday, October 18th, are eligible for reimbursement of some expenses up to $700 in accordance with ASCL policy and practice.
Conference Registration
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