Law Commons^™

Regulation Of Standards In Technology Markets Between Competition Policy And International Trade - The Chinese And European Experience (Foreword), Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

The regulation of standard setting varies significantly across regions and covering and comparing in detail the EU and Chinese regimes is an interesting decision and illustrates how two highly bureaucratic systems address the regulation of technological advancements.

The analysis demonstrates how not only legal and economic considerations play a role in the regulation of standards, but also and most importantly political ones. The “openness” of China’s standardization is a telling example in this regard. China created a specific system for standard setting and invested heavily in high-tech industries. Initially, the State backed the industry to support the creation of a …

Constitutionalism Today: The Prospects Of The European Constituional Community, Susanne Baer, Kriszta Kovacs, Maya Vogel

Book Chapters

In the late 1940s a consensus emerged: a post-World War II, post-colonial, post-authoritarian, grand consensus in Europe and beyond. Dignity, liberty, and equality should not merely be promises on paper or an elitist privilege for the few, and representative democracy should be the way to run societies. This consensus certainly gave birth to a variety of legal regimes, but it also defined a baseline for the political systems we call constitutional democracies: first, power should be distributed to parliament and representative government via fair elections that ensure equal voting rights and a realistic option of a peaceful change of government …

Global Issues In A Globalized World: The Unescapable Dialogue Between SharīʿA And The Constitution, Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

In an increasingly globalized world, a world in flux, which is constantly subject to rapid circulation of information, change is a dimension that we all experience in our lives with ever increasing frequency. Change, be it that of customs and fashion or that of laws and systems of government, is something which now seems impossible to escape. Change is an integral part of our unstable contemporaneity.

This is not only a continuous change but also a rapid one. In such a social and political environment, at a global and local level, it is more and more difficult to find a …

L’Utilité Du Droit Comparé (The Utility Of Comparative Law), Vivian Grosswald Curran

Book Chapters

French Abstract: Cette contribution était le discours d’ouverture à la Conférence des 100 ans de l’Institut Édouard Lambert à l’Université de Lyon. Elle discute de l’utilité du droit comparé dans le monde actuel d’une perspective technique dans le cadre d’une situation aux États-Unis et d’une perspective plus politique dans le cadre d’un arrêt de la CJUE.

English Abstract: This essay was delivered as a keynote address to the conference to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Institut Édouard Lambert at the University of Lyon. It argues for the usefulness of comparative law in today’s world from a technical angle in …

Internal Legitimacy And Europe's Piecemeal Constitution: Reflections On Van Gend At 50, Daniel H. Halberstam

Book Chapters

Europe is often said to lack a proper constitution of the radical American kind. That may be so, but there is a different, more promising sense in which Europe might be following the very best of the constitutional tradition.

Local, Global And Plural Constitutionalism: Europe Meets The World., Daniel Halberstam

Book Chapters

The idea that constitutionalism is central to the legitimate exercise of public power has dominated the modern liberal imagination since the Enlightenment. The ideal of limited collective self-governance has spawned a rich and highly diverse tradition of hard-fought national constitutions from the time of the Glorious Revolution into the present. Today, however, constitutionalism faces its greatest challenge yet: the question of its continued relevance to modern governance. With the explosion of governance beyond the state, many wonder whether constitutionalism as we know it is being marginalized or altogether undermined.

Top-Down Or Bottom-Up? A Look At The Unification Of Private Law In Federal Systems, Daniel Halberstam, Mathias Reimann

Book Chapters

At its current stage, European private law is still more an aspiration than a reality. It is true that there is a substantial body of European private law on the Union level; and it is also true that there are private law principles and rules shared by many—often by most, and sometimes even by all—European legal systems. Still, in most areas, we do not at present have one body of positive private law for all of Europe, but rather a coexistence of more or less similar national laws. Thus, to the extent one considers a European private law desirable, one …

Pluralism In Marbury And Van Gend, Daniel Halberstam

Book Chapters

‘Great cases, like hard cases, make bad law’, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, famously remarked in his first Supreme Court dissent. For Holmes, ‘great cases are called great, not by reason of their real importance in shaping the law of the future, but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment’. On this account neither Marbury v Madison70 nor Van Gend en Loos would qualify. Van Gend was a case of great principle without greatly interesting facts. And Marbury was a great political battle that nevertheless produced a case of great principle.

Comparative Federalism And The Issue Of Commandeering, Daniel Halberstam

Book Chapters

Divided power systems, such as the United States, the European Union, and the Federal Republic of Germany, confront a common question: whether the central government may 'commandeer' its component States, that is, whether the central government may issue binding commands that force its component States to take regulatory action with respect to private parties. This chapter explores what may initially appear as a puzzling difference in the answers given. Whereas US constitutional jurisprudence currently prohibits commandeering, the founding charters of the EU and Germany permit such action. And all do so in the name of protecting the integrity and importance …

Central Feud In Njáls Saga., William I. Miller

Book Chapters

Njáls Saga is above all a story of feud, and a complicated one at that. This paper attempts to give sense to those aspects of the feud between the Sigfussons and the people at Bergporshvall most frequently perceived by readers to be glaring weaknesses in a nearly perfect work. I refer to the apparent lack of motivation for the killing of Hoskuldr Hvitanessgodi, an act which has universally appalled critics and commentators of the saga, and the ease with which Mordr Valgardsson is able to "trick" Skarphedinn, a person otherwise characterized by a brutal wit and penetrating intelligence. In what …

Anglo-Saxon Jurisprudence, Thomas M. Cooley

Book Chapters

Professor Cooley's contribution to a "popular dictionary" describes the legal history and law codes of Anglo-Saxon England, an ambitious undertaking for a two-page entry. He admits outright: "The memorials that have come down to us afford but an imperfect view of Anglo-Saxon laws."