Digital Commons Network^™

A Government Of Laws Not Of Precedents 1776-1876: The Google Challenge To Common Law Myth, James Maxeiner

James R Maxeiner

Conventional wisdom holds that the United States is a common law country of precedents where, until the 20th century (the “Age of Statutes”), statutes had little role. Digitization by Google and others of previously hard to find legal works of the 19th century challenges this common law myth. At the Centennial in 1876 Americans celebrated that “The great fact in the progress of American jurisprudence … is its tendency towards organic statute law and towards the systematizing of law; in other words, towards written constitutions and codification.” This article tests the claim of the Centennial Writers of 1876 and finds …

Regulation Not Prohibition: The Comparative Case Against The Insurable Interest Doctrine, Sharo Michael Atmeh

Sharo M Atmeh

American law requires an insurable interest—a pecuniary or affective stake in the subject of an insurance policy—as a predi-cate to properly obtaining insurance. In theory, the rule prevents both wagering on individual lives and moral hazard. In practice, the doctrine is avoided by complex insurance transaction structuring to effectuate both origination and transfers of insurance by individuals without an insurable interest. This paper argues that it is time to ab-andon the insurable interest doctrine. As both the English and Aus-tralian experiences indicate, elimination of the insurable interest doctrine will have little detrimental pecuniary effect on the insurance industry, while freeing …

Semiprocedural Judicial Review, Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov

Dr. Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov

This Article explores a novel cross-national phenomenon: the emergence of a new judicial review model that merges procedural judicial review with substantive judicial review. While this model is not yet fully defined, it has already spurred much controversy. The Article explicates this emerging model, which it terms 'semiprocedural review,' and provides a theoretical exploration of both its justifications and its objectionable aspects. It concludes by evaluating semiprocedural review's overall justifiability and suggesting guiding principles for a more legitimate model of semiprocedural review. The Article pursues these goals through the unique perspective of juxtaposing semiprocedural review with 'pure procedural judicial review' …

De La Admiración A La Recepción Crítica: El Apagado Eco De La Codificación Del Derecho Privado Europeo En América Latina, Leysser L. Leon

Leysser L. León

En este artículo se esboza el nuevo posicionamiento de los ordenamientos jurídica de América Latina frente a los proyectos de armonización de las codificaciones civiles europeas. La tesis del Autor es que de una etapa dilatada de importación normativa masiva se ha pasado (y se necesita pasar) a una recepción crítica: con el auxilio de la comparación jurídica, se debe discriminar el material legislativo extranjero, conociéndolo en su origen e informándose sobre su problemática, a fin de evitar la migración de modelos inadecuados para fructificar fuera de su contexto de producción.

Argonauts Of The Eastern Mediterranean: Legal Transplants And Signaling, Assaf Likhovski

Assaf Likhovski

This Article tells the story of two legal cooperation projects established by the Israeli Ministry of Justice in the 1950s and 1960s. The Article argues that the history of these projects can suggest a new way of understanding the process of legal transplantation. Much of the literature on legal transplants focuses on the legal norms transplanted.

This Article seeks to shift the focus of the debate from a discussion of the legal norms transplanted to a discussion of the social acts involved in the process of transplantation. The Article argues that while transplantation may be motivated by practical considerations,such as …

Legislative Supremacy In The United States?: Rethinking The Enrolled Bill Doctrine, Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov

Dr. Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov

This Article revisits the “enrolled bill” doctrine which requires courts to accept the signatures of the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate on the “enrolled bill” as unimpeachable evidence that a bill has been constitutionally enacted. It argues that this time-honored doctrine has far-reaching ramifications that were largely overlooked in existing discussions. In addition to reexamining the soundness of this doctrine’s main rationales, the Article introduces two major novel arguments against the doctrine. First, it argues that the doctrine amounts to an impermissible delegation of both judicial and lawmaking powers to the legislative officers of Congress. Second, …