\\server05\productn\C\COM\56-3\COM302.txt unknown Seq: 1 24-JUN-08 9:55 NILS JANSEN* AND RALF MICHAELS** Beyond the State? Rethinking Private Law: Introduction to the Issue I. INTRODUCTION “Private law beyond the state” is a topic that is fashionable, im- portant, and widely discussed. Yet it presents so many different as- pects and perspectives that it has, so far, remained remarkably poorly understood. Somehow, transcending the boundaries of “the state” and “the Westphalian model” is en vogue, albeit often in a rather vague fashion. Somehow, domestic public law seems anti- quated in a globalizing world while private law seems adequate to a neoliberal worldview. A closer look reveals how much remains un- clear, how many different aspects are involved in the seemingly in- nocuous and simple formulation of “private law beyond the state,” and how much there still is to learn and to explore. Ironically, it is precisely because globalization moves us “beyond the state” that we are, more than ever, forced to rethink private law and its relation to the state. Such learning and exploring were the goals of a conference held in the summer of 2007 at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, Germany. 1 Leading scholars from the United States, Germany, and Israel, came together to bring different perspectives—of legal history, law and economics, legal sociology, private international law, law and anthropology—to bear on a topic that proved to be ever more multi-faceted. After a two- day open conference at which papers were presented and discussed by a large and engaged audience, the speakers met for a half day to discuss their respective positions amongst themselves—to flesh out differences and similarities in viewpoints but also regarding their un- derstanding of what is at stake in these debates. Both the open con- * Professor of Roman Law, Legal History, German and European Private Law, M¨ unster University, Germany. ** Professor of Law and Director, Center for International and Comparative Law, Duke University. 1. For conference reports in German, see Martin Flohr, Beyond the State? Re- thinking Private Law. Symposium in Hamburg am 12. und 13. Juli 2007, 72 RABELSZ 391-96 (2008); Alexandra Kemmerer, Auf dem globalen Basar – Juristen feilschen in Hamburg um den Wert des Privatrechts, FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG, 30 Au- gust, 2007, p. 35; Jens Kleinschmidt, Tagungsbericht – “Beyond the State? Rethinking Private Law,” 62 JURISTENZEITUNG 1044-45 (2007). 527