Chile

The academic and judicial study and elaboration of law in Chile has one distinguishing feature: a marked formal and legalistic tradition oriented almost exclusively toward rules and procedures. Scholars introduced the first systematic multidisciplinary approach to the study of law in the 1960s with the “law and development” movement. Several university law faculties, consistent with this movement, created the Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Jurídica (Institute of Legal Teaching and Research). The institute was responsible for implementing reform in the teaching of law at the universities, including active questioning in classes and new academic materials. It also sought to orient academic activity toward empirical research.

As in other parts of the world, the law and development movement did not prosper in Chile. Traditional law schools resisted ...