American Society of Comparative Law

In 1950, the American Foreign Law Association (AFLA), centered in New York City and consisting primarily of practicing attorneys, decided to broaden the scope of comparative law in the United States. Many of the members of the AFLA who were affiliated with law schools believed that comparative law needed an organization, principally of law school sponsors, that could support a quality journal dedicated to the subject and similar to those in France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy. Since the United States did not have a funded institute or center of comparative law like that in Berlin or Paris, Americans would need to invent the functional equivalent. That entity would be the American Association for the Comparative Study of Law (AACSL), whose directors filed its certificate of incorporation in New York in June 1951.

The founders believed that comparative law was too vast a field for a single institution to preempt, and even if such a step were possible, it would be undesirable in a nation as diverse as the United States. This attitude precluded tying the Association or its journal financially with the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law at Columbia University or the new Tulane Institute of Comparative Law and the Tulane Law Review. The Association's incorporation certificate stated its purpose: promoting the comparative study of law and the understanding of international legal systems; furthering research in those areas; and publishing a not-for-profit law journal as well as other writings on comparative, foreign, or private international law.

The AACSL held its first meeting in July 1951 during the American Bar Association (ABA) annual meeting. Representatives of twenty law schools met at New York University Law School to discuss joining the Association. That first year, ten schools plus the AFLA joined as sponsor members. Several of these schools' directors were active in multidisciplinary approaches to law, including Max Rheinstein (1899–1977, Chicago), Heinrich Kronstein (1897–1972, Georgetown), Jerome Hall, (1901–1992, Indiana), Hessel Yntema (1891–1966, Michigan), and Myres McDougal (1906–1998, Yale).