David P. Currie

David P. Currie (born May 29, 1936 in Macon (Georgia) ; † October 15, 2007 , Chicago ) was an American law scholar and professor at the University of Chicago .

life and work

Currie studied at the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School , where he received his Bachelor of Laws in 1960 . He then worked as the law clerk of the judge at the United States Court of Appeals Henry Friendly and later the judge at the Supreme Court of the United States Felix Frankfurter . Since 1962 Currie taught and researched at the Law School of the University of Chicago, from 1991 he was Edward H. Levi Distinguished Professor of Law and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Currie's work is essentially divided into two major sub-areas: environmental protection law and the German-American constitutional comparison, as one of the most important representatives he was considered at the time. His casebooks on comparative law ("Conflict of Laws") and federal jurisdiction ("Federal Jurisdiction") experienced several editions.

When Currie began studying environmental law, this area of ​​law was still in its infancy in American law, so that he became one of the pioneers in this area of ​​law. In 1969 he became a member of the Illinois Air Pollution Control Board and in 1970 its chairman. He is considered to be one of the intellectual fathers of the Illinois Environmental Protection Act of 1970. In 1982 Currie published his monograph " Air Pollution: Federal Law and Analysis ".

The further focus of his work is the American constitutional law, especially the comparison with the German constitutional law. His preoccupation with the American constitution and constitutional history can be seen in his works “ The Constitution in the Supreme Court ” (two volumes, 1985/90), “ The Constitution in Congress ” (four volumes, 1997-2005) and “ The Constitution of the United States of America ”(1988). During numerous guest professorships at the universities of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main , Hanover , Heidelberg and Tübingen , among others, he gained valuable insights into the German constitutional landscape, which he found in his 1994 work " The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany " made fertile. He used the knowledge gained for comprehensive comparative legal studies, mainly published in specialist journals.

family

Currie was the son of American university professor and pioneer of American private international law Brainerd Currie . He was married to former Illinois Representative Barbara Flynn Currie .

Fonts (selection)

• The United States Constitution . Metzer, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 978-3-7875-5352-5 .
• The constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany . University Press , Chicago 1994, ISBN 0-226-13113-0 .

literature

• Oliver Lepsius : Obituary , in JZ 2008, p. 137

Web links

• Literature by and about David P. Currie in the catalog of the German National Library
• Obituary for Currie at the University of Chicago