Konrad Zweigert and Hein Kötz, the preeminent postwar German specialists on comparative law, give a standard account of how foreign law affects legislative innovation: Legislators all over the world have found that on many matters good laws cannot be produced without the assistance of comparative law, whether in the form of general studies or of reports specially prepared on the topic in question. Ever since the second half of the nineteenth century legislation in Germany has been preceded by extensive comparative legal research.
