Professor Alexandra Braun awarded the Canada Prize for her recent monograph

Professor Alexandra Braun had been awarded the prestigious Canada Prize by the International Academy of Comparative Law (IACL) for her monograph Claiming a Promised Inheritance: A Comparative Study published by Oxford University Press in 2022.

The award was presented at the Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law during a Ceremony that took place on 30 September 2026 at the Humboldt University in Berlin. The Canada Prize which has been in existence since 1974 is awarded every four years by the IACL and recognises an exceptional, original legal monograph written in English or French in which the common law and the civil law systems are the subject of a critical comparative study in a field of private or public law. The Prize promotes studies that foster mutual understanding between legal traditions and advance the discipline of comparative law.

Professor Braun’s monograph explores what happens when a promise of an inheritance is not honoured. Drawing on contract, property, employment, enrichment, and succession law across common and civil law jurisdictions, it maps the legal avenues available to ‘disappointed promisees.’ The book asks how these responses protect the interests of promisees and whether they are sensitive to the context in which such promises are expressed. The book examines the various forms of redress, their scope, and the challenges promisees face when brining a claim, as well as the values and interests that are at stake when granting relief. It argues that the law has long paid more attention to those who make such promises than to those who rely on them, often overlooking their vulnerabilities.

In awarding the Prize to Professor Braun, Professor Rosalie Jukier, on behalf of the Jury, described the award-winning book as a ‘sustained comparative study of an important, yet somewhat neglected, area of private law.’ The jury was ‘impressed by its scholarly quality, rigorous methodology and comparative breadth and appreciated, in particular, the integrative approach to the comparison of civil and common law legal traditions.’ It further commented on the fact that the book was ‘a very compelling read’.

OUP has the following discount code available for the book: Discount code PDF flyer.