COMPARATIVE RESEARCH AND UNIFICATION OF LAW

The current interest in international unification of law as a major objective of comparative legal research is significant testimony, in an era of accentuated nationalism, to the increasing solidarity of the modern world. In the development of this interest, Latin America has played a pioneer role. As early as 1826, the celebrated Congress convened at Panama envisaged in its deliberations what one of its members termed a System of Public Law for the Americas. The Congress of Montevideo of 1888-1889, anticipated by the Lima Congress of Jurists of 1878, produced the first substantial and successful codification of private international law, comprized in eight treaties and recently revised. Together with the Código Bustamante, this consolidation of the rules of private international law constitutes a notable instance of the spirit of legal unity flourishing in the Americas