Law Commons^™

Why Didn't The Common Law Follow The Flag?, Christian Burset

Christian Burset

This Article considers a puzzle about how different kinds of law came to be distributed around the world. The legal systems of some European colonies largely reflected the laws of the colonizer. Other colonies exhibited a greater degree of legal pluralism, in which the state administered a mix of different legal systems. Conventional explanations for this variation look to the extent of European settlement: where colonizers settled in large numbers, they chose to bring their own laws; otherwise, they preferred to retain preexisting ones. This Article challenges that assumption by offering a new account of how and why the British …

To Compare Or Not To Compare? Reading Justice Breyer, Russell A. Miller

Russell A. Miller

Justice Breyer's new book The Court and the World presents a number of productive challenges. First, it provides an opportunity to reflect generally on extra-judicial scholarly activities. Second, it is a major and important - but also troubling - contribution to debates about comparative law broadly, and the opening of domestic constitutional regimes to external law and legal phenomena more specifically. I begin by suggesting a critique of the first of these points. These are merely some thoughts on the implications of extra-judicial scholarship. The greater portion of this essay, however, is devoted to a reading of Justice Breyer's book, …

El Fideicomiso En América Latina: Reflexiones Para La Comparación Jurídica, Vanessa Villanueva Collao

Vanessa Villanueva Collao

No abstract provided.

The French Prosecutor As Judge. The Carpenter’S Mistake?, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

Lawyers Without Borders, Catherine A. Rogers

Catherine Rogers

Professional regulation of attorneys is still attempting to catch up with the burgeoning international legal profession, which until recently has been wholly unregulated. The primary effort has been through revisions to Model Rule 8.5 to extend the reach of the Rule to international cases and professional activities in foreign countries. Because Rule 8.5 was drafted for domestic multi-jurisdiction practice, however, it is based on assumptions about territoriality and the historical relationship between the jurisdiction of tribunals and the licensing of attorneys that are simply inapposite in international settings. As a result, applying Rule 8.5 to international tribunals and international advocacy …

Arbitral Adjudication: A Comparative Assessment Of Its Remedial And Substantive Status In Transnational Commerce, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

With the growth of international trade, arbitration has emerged as the preferred remedy for disputes in private international commerce. Its adjudicatory features respond well to the sui generis dispute resolution needs of international commercial contracts. Most significantly, an arbitration agreement acts as an elaborate choice-of-forum clause. It allows the parties to satisfy their need for a predictable and effective dispute resolution process by creating a more realistic and workable framework that supersedes the fundamentally parochial alternative proffered by national legal systems. The party autonomy principle that underlies arbitration gives the contracting parties the power to fashion a remedial process tailored …

The Evolution Of Chinese Merger Notification Guidelines: A Work In Progress Integrating Global Consensus And Domestic Imperatives, Susan Beth Farmer

Susan Beth Farmer

China is among the most recent entrants into global competition enforcement, having adopted the first competition law of general application, the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) after more than a decade of drafting. The AML and Merger Notification Thresholds, rules issued by decree of the State Council, became effective on August 3, 2008. Both the law and the guidelines were subject to public review and comment, and went through a number of drafts before final adoption.

This article is a comprehensive comparison of merger standards across jurisdictions, with particular focus on the evolution of merger regulation in China. It comprises six parts; …

Resolving Competition Related Disputes Under The Aml: Theory & Practice, Susan Beth Farmer

Susan Beth Farmer

This presentation was given at the European China Law Studies 2014 Conference, Making, Enforcing and Accessing the Law, in Hong Kong. The presentation addresses the Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), the MOFCOMM, NDRC, and SAIC, and litigation before the Supreme People's Court.

The Role Of Comparative Law In Shaping Corporate Statutory Reforms, Marco Ventoruzzo

Marco Ventoruzzo

This Essay discusses how comparative law played and plays a role in the statutory development of corporate laws. The influence of laws of other systems on the development of statutory law is common, explicit, and represents a tradition that accompanied legal reforms since the very beginning of the development of legislation. Focusing on modern corporate law, I argue (but the argument could be extended to many other legal fields) that it is necessary to distinguish two basic ways in which comparative law influences legal reforms in one particular jurisdiction. The first one is through regulatory competition among different systems. In …

Marbury In Mexico: Judicial Review’S Precocious Southern Migration, M C. Mirow

M. C. Mirow

In attempting to construct United States-style judicial review for the Mexican Supreme Court in the 1880s, Ignacio Vallarta, president of the court, read Marbury in a way that preceded this use of the case in the United States. Using this surprising fact as a central example, this article makes several important contributions to the field of comparative constitutional law. The work demonstrates that through constitutional migration, novel readings of constitutional sources can arise in foreign fora. In an era when the United States Supreme Court may be accused of parochialism in its constitutional analysis, the article addresses the current controversy …

Bankruptcy For The Poor?, Stephanie Ben-Ishai, Saul Schwartz

Stephanie Ben-Ishai

The conventional wisdom is that the poor are not heavy users of the insolvency system, because creditors are unwilling to take risks on the poor and because many of the poor are judgment-proof. However, credit is now widely available across the spectrum of income groups. In addition, poverty is often a temporary state for many Canadians; therefore, being judgment-proof is likewise temporary. Some of those who are poor at any point in time are in fact in need of bankruptcy protection. They have debts that they are unable to pay and little likelihood of being able to repay in the …

The Greening Of Canadian Cyber Laws: What Environmental Law Can Teach And Cyber Law Can Learn, Sara Smyth

Sara Smyth

This article examines whether Canadian environmental law and policy could serve as a model for cyber crime regulation. A wide variety of offences are now committed through digital technologies, including thievery, identity theft, fraud, the misdirection of communications, intellectual property theft, espionage, system disruption, the destruction of data, money laundering, hacktivism, and terrorism, among others. The focus of this Article is on the problem of data security breaches, which target businesses and consumers. Following the Introduction, Part I provides an overview of the parallels that can be drawn between threats in the natural environment and on the Internet. Both disciplines …

Comparative Legal Traditions In A Nutshell, Paolo Carozza, Mary Glendon, Michael Wallace Gordon

Paolo G. Carozza

An introduction to comparative law written from the American lawyer’s viewpoint rather than that of the European civil law lawyer. This expert discussion concentrates on the three major legal traditions of the West: civil, common, and socialist. Subjects covered include legal structures in civil law nations; legal actors in civil law tradition; procedure; substantive law; sources of law; judicial process; and rules. Also contains chapters on the European Union and the European human rights system.

Comparative Legal Traditions In A Nutshell. 3rd Edition., Paolo Carozza, Mary Glendon, Colin Picker

Paolo G. Carozza

An introduction to comparative law written from the American lawyer’s viewpoint rather than that of the European civil law lawyer. This expert discussion concentrates on the three major legal traditions of the West: civil, common, and socialist. Subjects covered include legal structures in civil law nations; legal actors in civil law tradition; procedure; substantive law; sources of law; judicial process; and rules. Also contains chapters on the European Union and the European human rights system.

Comparative Legal Traditions: Text, Materials, And Cases On Western Law. 3rd Edition., Paolo Carozza, Mary Glendon, Colin Picker

Paolo G. Carozza

This new edition includes some significant revisions since the last edition was published in 1994. The new edition includes: A greater emphasis on Public Law in the Continental and Common law traditions; More coverage of the impact of the regional European law (EC EU and ECHR) on the legal traditions;Some updated Problems (including one concerning Mixed Jurisdictions); and Numerous updates to the Common Law Tradition materials in light of the many significant reforms in England over the last ten years.

Comparative Environmental Constitutionalism, Erin Daly, James May

Erin Daly

As more and more countries around the globe are amending their constitutions to recognises environmental rights and duties relating to air, water, the use of natural resources, sustainability, climate change, and more, courts are increasingly engaging with these provisions and developing a common constitutional law of environmental rights. This article examines this growing jurisprudence and surveys the central axes around which debates about environmental constitutionalism revolve. First, we examine whether environmental rights are more suitably advanced at the international level or at the national level of constitutional law, as is increasingly the case; the former offers two alternatives—protecting the environment …

Removing The Distraction Of Delay, Jill E. Family

Jill E. Family

Immigration adjudication is in an awkward position. There is an intricate system to adjudicate immigration removal (deportation) cases, but that system is hindered by restrictions, and the constant threat of further restrictions, that reflect distaste for providing process to foreign nationals facing removal. There is a push and pull phenomenon, with immigration adjudication stretched uncomfortably in between two forces. On the one side, there is a push to apply common notions of due process to immigration removal cases, to push that the same concepts of procedural justice should apply in immigration cases as they would in any other context. On …

Insuring Floods: The Most Common And Devastating Natural Catastrophies In America, Christopher French

Christopher C. French

Law In Regression? Impacts Of Quantitative Research On Law And Regulation, David C. Donald

David C. Donald

Quantitative research (QR) has undeniably improved the quality of law- and rulemaking, but it can also present risks for these activities. On the one hand, replacing anecdotal assertions regarding behavior or the effects of rules in an area to be regulated with objective, statistical evidence has advanced the quality of regulatory discourse. On the other hand, because the construction of such evidence often depends on bringing the complex realities of both human behavior and rules designed to govern it into simple, quantified variables, QR findings can at times camouflage complexity, masking real problems. Deceptively objective findings can in this way …

Law And Development: The Way Forward Or Just Stuck In The Same Place?, D. Daniel Sokol

D. Daniel Sokol

This Essay does three things. First, it provides an overview of Law and Development issues. Second, it responds to other pieces in the symposium "The Future of Law and Development". Third, it suggests that to measure success, Law and Development needs clearer goals.

Meaningless Comparisons: Corporate Tax Reform Discourse In The United States, Omri Y. Marian

Omri Y Marian

This article examines the role that international comparisons play in current corporate tax reform discourse in the United States. Citing the need to make the U.S. corporate tax system more competitive, comparisons are frequently used to assess other jurisdictions' tax-competitiveness, and many legislative proposals are supported by such comparative arguments. Examining such discourse against the background of several theoretical approaches to comparative law, this article argues that, to the extent that comparisons are aimed at providing guidance for prospective reform, this purpose is not well served. Participants in the corporate tax reform discourse, from both sides of the aisle, lack …

Globally Speaking - Honoring The Victims' Stories: Matsuda's Human Rights Praxis, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

Globally speaking, international law and the vast majority of domestic legal systems strive to protect the right to freedom of expression. The United States’ First Amendment provides an early historical protection of speech—a safeguard now embraced around the world. The extent of this protection, however, varies among states. The United States stands alone in excluding countervailing considerations of equality, dignitary, or privacy interests that would favor restrictions on speech. The gravamen of the argument supporting such American exceptionalism is that free expression is necessary in a democracy. Totalitarianism, the libertarian narrative goes, thrives on government control of information to the …

"To Kill A Cleric?: The Al-Awlaki Case And The Chaplaincy Exception Under The Laws Of War", K Benson

K Benson

Anwar al-Awlaki was the first American citizen to be targeted for extrajudicial assassination by the Obama administration. While scholarly attention has focused on legality of his killing under domestic law, his status as a chaplain under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) has gone unexamined. The possibility that Anwar al-Awlaki may have been a protected person as a chaplain has profound ramifications for the legality of his killing and for the conduct of the war on terror more generally. As the definition of a "Chaplain" under IHL is under-developed at best and vague at worst, ideologues such as Mr. al-Awlaki operate in …

Uses And Misuses Of Comparative Law In International Human Rights: Some Reflections On The Jurisprudence Of The European Court Of Human Rights, Paolo G. Carozza

Paolo G. Carozza

No abstract provided.

Continuity And Rupture In "New Approaches To Comparative Law", Paolo G. Carozza

Paolo G. Carozza

No abstract provided.

Organic Goods: Legal Understandings Of Work, Parenthood, And Gender Equality In Comparative Perspective, Paolo G. Carozza

Paolo G. Carozza

The United States and Italy have taken quite different approaches toward providing legal protections for working parents. This Article uses a comparative perspective to highlight crucial aspects of the American legal and cultural attitudes towards parental leave. The author demonstrates how deeply rooted beliefs about equality, work, and family life have influenced the development of parental leave law. In particular, the Article describes how Italian law rests on notions of fundamental social equality, as well as on views concerning the importance of the interests of children and the family. As a result of this broad conception of the interests involved, …

Addressing Early Marriage: Culturally Competent Practices And Romanian Roma (“Gypsy”) Communities, Judith Hale Reed

Judith A Hale Reed

Early marriage affects many communities around the world. Examples of commonly practiced early marriage can be found today in the U.S., India, Syria, and many other places. Although most countries have instituted minimum age laws for marriage, so that legal marriage can only occur after an age set by law, early marriage is still practiced for tradition, control, security, and other reasons. This article explores the harms of early marriage and the international instruments meant to defend against these harms in Part II. Part III reviews theoretical perspectives from legal anthropology and presents a case study of early marriage in …

"Unnatural Deaths," Criminal Sanctions, And Medical Quality Improvement In Japan, Robert B. Leflar

Robert B Leflar

A worldwide awakening to the high incidence of preventable harm resulting from medical care, combined with pressure on hospitals and physicians from liability litigation, has turned international attention to the need for better structures to resolve medical disputes in a way that promotes medical safety and honesty toward patients. The civil justice system in the United States, in particular, is criticized as inefficient, arbitrary, and sometimes punitive. It is charged with undermining sound medical care by encouraging wasteful expenditures through defensive medicine; by driving information about medical mistakes underground where it escapes analysis, undercutting quality improvement efforts; and by forcing …

Comparative And International Health Law, Timothy Stoltzfus Jost

Timothy S. Jost

No abstract provided.

Private Or Public Approaches To Insuring The Uninsured: Lessons From International Experience With Private Insurance, Timothy Stoltzfus Jost

Timothy S. Jost

In the recent past a broad consensus has emerged in the United States that the best way to expand coverage of the uninsured is to use tax subsidies to encourage the purchase of private health insurance policies. Many advocates of this approach also call for replacing employment-related group policies with individual policies, and for minimizing regulation of private insurance. Those who advocate these policies, however, have rarely considered the experience that other nations have had with private health insurance. In fact most other countries have private insurance markets, and in many countries private insurance plays a significant role in financing …