Study day in Paris in honour of Professor Geoffrey Samuel

A study day in honour of Kent Law School Professor Geoffrey Samuel and his work on ‘Comparative Legal Reasoning’ will be hosted in Paris on Saturday.

Hosted by the Kent Centre for European and Comparative Law (Kent CECL) the event will be held at the University of Kent’s centre in Paris at Reid Hall. A welcome address will be given by Kent Senior Lecturer Dr Simone Glanert and Professor Samuel will give the concluding response before the evening ends with a celebration dinner.

Contributions, which will be released in the form of a special issue in the Journal of Comparative Law in 2017 and as a book with Wildy in 2018, include:

  • (Ré)-apprendre à penser le droit à partir du cas, François Ost, Université Saint-Louis
  • (Foreign) Law As Self-Fashioning, Pierre Legrand, Sorbonne
  • Dominus Mundi: The Political Sublime and the Western Legal Tradition, Pier G. Monateri, Università di Torino
  • Theorising Legal Reasoning in Comparative History: The Place of Imagination, Maksymillian Del Mar, Queen Mary
  • Consequences in French and English Judicial Reasoning, John Bell, University of Cambridge
  • The Swiss Federal Court and Its Pragmatic Pluralist Methodology, Franz Werro, Université de Fribourg & Georgetown University Law Center
  • Interpretation in Multilingual States: Utopia or Columbus Egg? Pascal Pichonnaz, Université de Fribourg
  • Patterns of Migration (from Civilian to Common Law) at the Limits of Property, Anne Bottomley, University of Kent
  • On Legal Forms of Intolerance (and How They Travel), Horatia Muir Watt, Sciences Po Paris

Professor Samuel is a specialist in comparative law. He is a visiting professor at universities across France and Europe and is currently Professor affilié at the École de droit, Sciences-Po in Paris.

As well as teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students at Kent Law School, he is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Comparative Law. He has published many book chapters and articles in the fields of comparative law and legal reasoning. His most recent book, A Short Introduction to Judging and to Legal Reasoning, was published in August by Edward Elgar. Taking three distinct perspectives, the book considers what legal reasoning has been; what legal reasoning is from the view of judges and jurists; and what legal reasoning is from the view of a social science epistemologist or humanities specialist.

Other recent books include Rethinking Legal Reasoning (2016, Edward Elgar) and An Introduction to Comparative Law Theory and Method (2014, Hart Publishing).

Kent CECL provides a collaborative framework for the further development of Kent Law School’s extensive activities in the areas of European and comparative law. It offers a platform for critical and interdisciplinary discussion by way of guest lecture series, workshops and conferences on current issues arising from comparative law or European Union law.