@article{2024:moser:the_practi,
title = {The practice of multilingualism in legal scholarship – A case study on the use of French and the research on francophone law at the Max Planck Institute for International Law in Heidelberg and beyond –},
year = {2024},
note = {Language is the cornerstone of all legal thought and practice. Yet,
language diversity is in very steep decline in international legal
scholarship and practice, where English has undeniably become the
dominant language. Yet, this has not always been the case. Some
decades ago, French was the language of international law and
diplomacy. This linguistic shift is clearly perceptible in one of the
world’s leading institutions in the field of (international) legal
research, namely the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law
and International Law in Heidelberg (MPIL or Institute hereafter). In
my contribution, I analyse the use of French and the study of
francophone law at said Institute over the last 100 years and put my
findings in a broader perspective of how legal scholarship and
practice has changed in the last decades. My inquiry shows that French
is definitely losing ground at the MPIL, and the study of francophone
legal systems is also in sharp decline. This development is all but
unique to the institute under scrutiny, though. As I demonstrate, the
Institute offers a faithful representation of the changing conditions
and practices of diplomacy, international law and (legal) academia in
Germany and beyond. We are faced with anglophone hegemony, which comes
with significant analytical, conceptual and other biases. Ultimately,
the question is whether we are willing and capable of making
individual and institutional choices that allow for multilingualism,
and thus conceptual and intellectual diversity in legal research and
practice.},
journal = {RuZ - Recht und Zugang},
pages = {41--60},
author = {Moser, Carolyn},
volume = {5},
number = {1}
}