Bridging the Divide: Some Recollections of Undertaking Comparative Labour Law Research with Former European Socialist Countries

This paper offers some reflections on comparative scientific research in the field of labour law by reference to the former socialist countries of Europe prior to 1989. The focus is primarily upon approaches to collaborative research and techniques for comparative evaluation rather than any attempt to deliver a detailed elaboration of “socialist labour law”. The perspective is that of a British labour lawyer whose contemporaneous activities extended to publication, research and teaching projects in collaboration with a broad range of socialist academic experts of the time. This presentation sets out by noting the relative lack of attention paid to experiences in those socialist legal systems – in part as a result of difficulties in accessing and understanding scientific works published in the official languages of those countries, but also due to widespread scepticism on the parts of non-socialist researchers towards the value of work undertaken by the academic community in the socialist countries. The author points to the importance of studying experiences of these legal systems not only for the sake of historical reflection but also by virtue of insights that those experiences can offer to an appreciation of labour law as it has developed post-1989. The historical context provided by this work thus highlights the opportunity for reflection in relation to concrete national systems, as well as clearly illustrating the timeless importance of conducting comparative research on labour law. Emphasis is placed upon the need for an inclusive approach to the study of labour law in order to discern the totality of developments in that field, rather than limiting the focus to regionally oriented developments as scientific facts and the drawing of conclusions based on them. In the course of presenting this paper, the author also provides an insight into the career of Prof. Željko Potočnjak, whose position as a prominent scholar of labour law in Central and Eastern Europe is considered through the prism of personal recollections and illustrations of the significance accorded to his contributions in that area.