Rewards and Challenges of Teaching Comparative Law in the Commonwealth Caribbean

• Author: Asya Ostroukh
• Position: Ph.D. Candidate, University of Edinburgh; Candidate of Legal Sciences, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies (Barbados), formerly Associate Professor, Kuban State University Law School (Russia).
• Pages: 1213-1233

Rewards and Challenges of Teaching Comparative

Law in the Commonwealth Caribbean

Asya Ostroukh*

INTRODUCTION

The need for comparative law in the age of globalization and

internationalization of life in general, and legal development in particular,

has been articulated in legal scholarship.1 The importance of comparative

law for training modern lawyers has been emphasized as well.2

Nevertheless, these issues are still discussed mostly in relation to and in the

context of larger countries and major legal systems, mostly Europe in whole,

its largest countries (Germany, France, and the United Kingdom), and the

United States. The importance of comparative law for small, marginal

jurisdictions offers a fruitful field to explore.

This Essay discusses the Author’s personal experience of teaching the

course of comparative law at the Faculty of Law at Cave Hill Campus of the

University of the West Indies (Barbados), focusing on the benefits and

challenges of this teaching in this particular region. The discussion also

includes the history and current development of comparative law in this part

of the world as well as future prospects of this field of knowledge.

Copyright 2016, by ASYA OSTROUKH.

* Ph.D. Candidate, University of Edinburgh; Candidate of Legal Sciences,

Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Cave Hill Campus of the University of

the West Indies (Barbados), formerly Associate Professor, Kuban State

University Law School (Russia).

1. JAAKKO HUSA, A NEW INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE LAW 93 (2015);

BÉNÉDICTE FAUVARQUE-COSSON, THE RISE OF COMPARATIVE LAW: A

CHALLENGE FOR LEGAL EDUCATION IN EUROPE 3 (2007); see also Horatia Muir

Watt, Globalization and Comparative Law, in THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF

COMPARATIVE LAW 582–83 (Mathias Reimann & Reinhard Zimmermann eds.,

2006).

2. FAUVARQUE-COSSON, supra note 1, at 7; MARY ANN GLENDON,

MICHAEL WALLACE GORDON & CHRISTOPHER OSAKWE, COMPARATIVE LEGAL

TRADITIONS 2 (2d ed. 1994); Ugo Mattei, An Opportunity Not to Be Missed: The

Future of Comparative Law in the United States, 46 AM. J. COMP. L. 709, 713

(1998).

1214 LOUISIANA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 76

I. THE TEACHING OF LAW, PARTICULARLY COMPARATIVE LAW,

AT CAVE HILL CAMPUS

The Faculty of Law at the University of the West Indies (“UWI”) was

established in 1970 in the midst of the acquisition of independence by most

British Caribbean colonies.3 The years that followed independence were

formative years for regional legal systems and legal reforms. The idea

behind the establishment of the Faculty of Law at UWI was to teach local

law, to produce lawyers who would practice in the region and who would

be able to adjust the existing law to the needs of the local society, and to

create facilities for legal research pursuing similar objectives.4 UWI

currently has three campuses: Cave Hill in Barbados, Mona in Jamaica,

and Saint Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago, with the faculties of law at

the last two campuses established in 2012.5

Overall, the Faculty of Law at Cave Hill Campus follows the British

curriculum in teaching law and offers basically the same courses as an

average British university, subject to certain regional modifications. The

same can be said about the teaching style at Cave Hill; it is very British in

its curriculum—the teaching of law is more theoretical and academic than

in the United States—and in the course materials. Lecturers use British-

3. Faculty of Law, About Us, U. WEST INDIES CAVE HILL, BARB .,

http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/Law/about-us.aspx [https://perma.cc/2NRB-P333]

(last visited Jan. 19, 2016).

4. The Wooding-Marshall Report on West Indian legal education of 1967

sets up the following aims of legal research in the region:

(i) the publication of a law journal to meet the badly felt need

for critical appraisal of current legal developments in both case

and statute law; (ii) a thorough examination and scholarly

exposition of current West Indian law and West Indian legal

history; (iii) fundamental enquiries, in cooperation with the

relevant disciplines in the field of social studies, into the

suitability of existing laws (most of which have been borrowed

from the colonial powers) to meet the needs of developing

societies; and (iv) assistance with research into specific

proposals for law reform, if so requested by governments.

Howard N. Malcolm, Towards the Emergence of an Anglo-West Indian

Jurisprudence, W. INDIAN L.J., Oct. 1993, at 53, 53 (quoting REPORT OF JOINT

CONSULTATIONS BETWEEN SIR HUGH WOODING AND PROFESSOR MARSHALL ON

THE QUESTION OF LEGAL EDUCATION IN THE WEST INDIES (1967)).

5. 1 UNIV. OF W. INDIES, THE STATU TES AND ORDINANCES AS OF 2012

ordinances 58, 59, at 139–40 (2012) (on file with Author).