There is no doubt that private international law works in close cooperation with comparative law. Horatia Muir Watt, for example, characterises the relationship between the two disciplines as “complementary” (H M Watt, “Private International Law”, in J M. Smits (ed.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law (2nd ed., Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012) p. 701). Similarly, Mathias Reimann describes it as “intimate” (M Reimann, “Comparative Law and Private International Law”, in M Reimann and R Zimmermann (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law (2nd ed., OUP, 2019) p. 1340). Meanwhile, Ralf Michaels, another distinguished scholar of comparative and private international law, considers that “in private international law scholarship, comparison has always been prominent” (Ralf Michaels, “Comparative Law and Private International Law”, in J Basedow et al. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Private International law –Volume I (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) p. 416).
Understanding foreign legal systems and the diversity of the solutions dealing with common problems and issues has always been crucial for private international law scholars and researchers. This enables them to refine the techniques and theories of private international law, and ultimately serves one of the most important goals of private international law: the coordination of different legal systems.
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