Dialogue of Legal Cultures

The project “Dialogue of Legal Cultures” aims at establishing and improving the dialogue between German and Iranian jurists, scholars of Islamic religious law and academics in Islamic Studies.
It is not a political discussion, but a scientific dialogue. The initiators of the project are Professor Christine Langenfeld, Institute for Public Law and Professor Irene Schneider, Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies.

The “Dialogue of Legal Cultures” was initiated in Winter 2009 with a ten day visit of an Iranian delegation to Germany. The topic of that first meeting was juvenile penal law. Subsequently, from 10 to 18 September 2010 a group of German jurists visited Iran (Esfahan, Qom and Tehran), discussing the interpretation of both legal and religious texts. The so far latest visit in this series of conferences was in September 2011, when again a group of Iranian jurists visited Berlin (the Ministry of the Interior), Strasbourg (the European Court of Human Rights) and Göttingen. Over the course of the conference series, the “Dialogue of Legal Cultures” has become a fixed institution for all participants: both sides prepare diligently the upcoming visits and, according to their testimonies, have drawn much benefit from it by obtaining knowledge of the other side's legal institutions and experience of each other's cultures. From the very beginning of the project there has been a frank and open scientific discussion, to a degree that has left the German participants surprised of the potential of their Iranian colleagues to engage in a critical approach to the subject. This conference also enables an encounter between different groups of Iranian participants who in Iran would not normally have the opportunity to meet or enter into a scholarly exchange. For this reason, the conference program is becoming more than merely an encounter between the German and Iranian colleagues (professors of law, judges and attorneys, as well as scholars of Islamic studies and theology); it is also impacting the inner-Iranian discourse, particularly as the persons involved in the conference, scholars and legal practitioners, are well connected communicators within Iranian society.

It is further important mentioning that at the conference Iranian and German participants are meeting at par with each other. This has created a process of mutually learning. This way, misunderstandings and prejudices between the two sides can be reduced and the in depth discussions at the conferences can trigger a learning process on both sides.