Biography

An internationally renowned expert on art and cultural property law and comparative law, John Henry Merryman continues to teach and publish prolifically, while now in his ninth decade. He has received numerous international prizes and honors, including the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and honorary doctorates from Aix-en Provence, Rome (Tor Vergata), and Trieste, and has been celebrated in two Festschiften: Comparative and Private International Law: Essays in Honor of John Henry Merryman on His Seventieth Birthday and Legal Culture in the Age of Globalization: Latin America and Latin Europe.

In 2004 Professor Merryman received the American Society of Comparative Law’s Lifetime Achievement Award “for his extraordinary scholarly contribution over a lifetime to comparative law in the United States.” He also has been both a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fulbright Research Professor at the Max Planck Institute. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1953, Professor Merryman was a member of the faculty at Santa Clara University.

Key Works

• John Henry Merryman and Albert E. Elsen, Law, Ethics and the Visual Arts, 4th ed., New York, NY:Aspen, 2002.
• John Henry Merryman, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Western Europe and Latin America, 2nd ed., Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985.
• John Henry Merryman, David S. Clark and Lawrence M. Friedman, Law and Social Change in Mediterranean Europe and Latin America: A Handbook of Legal Indicators for Comparative Study, Stanford, CA.: Stanford Studies in Law and Development, 1979.
• John Henry Merryman, Mauro Cappelletti and Joseph M. Perillo, The Italian Legal System: An Introduction, Stanford, CA: Stanford Unviersity Press, 1967. 462 pages.

In the News

• Is Greece Losing Its Elgin Marbles?
  Foreign Policy, August 21, 2009

Courses & Programs

Courses

• Art and the Law

Publications & Cases

Recent Publications View All

• John Henry Merryman, The American Art System and the New Cultural Policy, Stanford Public Law Working Paper, No. 1489612 (October 2009).
• John Henry Merryman and Rogelio Pérez-Perdomo, A Tradição da Civil Law: Uma Introdução aos Sistemas Jurídicos de Europa e da América Latina, São Paulo: Sergio Antonio Fabris Ed., 2009. (translation by Cássio Casagrande)
• John Henry Merryman, Thinking About the Elgin Marbles: Critical Essays on Cultural Property, Art and Law, London: Kluwer Law International, 2nd ed., June 2009.
• John Henry Merryman, The Nation and the Object, in Whose Culture? The Promise of Museums and the Debate Over Antiquities, James Cuno, ed., Princeton: Princeton Universtiy Press (March 2009).
• John Henry Merryman, Late Art Historian Deserves Mention for Helping Develop Rodin Collection, Stanford Report, February 25, 2009, pg. 2.
• John Henry Merryman, The Good Faith Acquisition of Stolen Art, in Crime, Procedure and Evidence in a Comparative Context: Essays in Honour of Professor Mirjan Damaska, John Jackson, Maximo Langer and Peter Tillers, eds., Oxford: Hart Publishing, October 2008 / Stanford Public Law Working Paper, No. 1025515 (July 2008).
• John Henry Merryman, Thinking About the Sevso Treasure, Stanford Public Law Working Paper, No. 1105584 (March 2008).
• John Henry Merryman, Albert E. Elsen and Stephen K. Urice, Law, Ethics and the Visual Arts, Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands: Kluwer Law International, 5th ed., 2007.
• John Henry Merryman, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Europe and Latin America, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 3rd. ed., 2007.
• John Henry Merryman, Museum Ethics, 1 Art and Museum Law Journal 93 (2006).

Affiliations & Honors

Honors and Awards

• Dr. h.c., Aix-en-Provence, 1982; Trieste, 1989; Rome (Tor Vergata), 1999
• Guggenheim Fellow, 1985-86
• Festschrift: Comparative and Private International Law: Essays in Honor of John Henry Merryman on his Seventieth Birthday (Clark ed., Berlin 1990)
• Festschrift: Legal Culture in the Age of Globalization: Latin America and Latin Europe
• Fulbright Research Professor, Max Planck Institute
• Recipient, American Society of Comparative Law’s Lifetime Achievement Award
• Recipient, Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (Cavaliere ufficiale), 1970
• Honoree, Tribute: In Honor of John Henry Merryman, 39 Stanford Law Review 1079 (1987)