After this course:
- the student has become aware of the current discussions about the possibilities and limits of legal doctrinal research in relation to other academic disciplines and in connection with developments in law and society.
- the student has gained a better idea of the methodologies involved in traditional legal doctrinal research in the two main Western legal traditions.
- the student has gained a better insight into the specific role of argumentation in legal doctrinal research, both as a method and an object of legal research.
- the student has acquired the practical skills to assess legal doctrinal research that is methodologically sound and that will help doing such research.
- the student has applied the knowledge of the studied methodological approaches in a paper, assessing the methodological soundness of research presented in selected PhD theses.
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This course addresses the methodology connected with the classic doctrinal approach to legal research. This classic approach concerns the construction, evaluation and reform of laws and legal concepts on the basis of an analysis of authoritative legal sources (e.g. legislation, case law) and academic legal literature. This approach to legal research is characterised as ‘internal’, meaning that legal scholars consider their subject from a similar point of view as the professionals who engage in this subject (e.g. legislators, judges).
The aim of this course is to introduce the participants to current debates regarding the nature of internal legal scholarship and to provide them with knowledge and tools for their own research projects, in particular regarding the argumentative aspect of legal doctrinal research and the methods for analysing legal sources and for comparative legal research.
This course consists of three parts.
I – General reflection: the nature of legal scholarship in a changing world (three sessions)
The general reflective part of the course offers an introduction into the nature of legal scholarship and its development in an evolving legal, societal and academic context.
II – Legal scholarship as an argumentative discipline (two sessions)
The second part of the course focuses on the role of legal argumentation in legal doctrinal research. This part of the course provides insight into the possibilities for approaching legal reasoning as a method and an object of legal research.
III – Methods of legal doctrinal research (two sessions)
In this part of the course, the participants are made familiar with the guidelines and best practices regarding the methods of legal doctrinal research.
Place of the course within the curriculum:
- Compulsory course in the master Legal Research
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