Law Commons^™

Big Questions Comparative Law, Anna Di Robilant

Faculty Scholarship

This essay reflects on Ran Hirschl’s book "Comparative Matters." Feeling that historical comparative law methodologies have been found wanting it looks to newer methods. For example, the critical approach to comparative law relies on comparison to expose the implicit biases and assumptions of the observer’s own system and to denounce the illusory and ideological nature of “legalism,” namely, the claim that law is both neutral and necessary. Comparative law and economics seeks to explain in precise terms the convergence of legal rules by using efficiency as a key metric. Comparative law and economics also gives a comparative twist to the …

Cultural Paradigms In Property Institutions, Taisu Zhang

Faculty Scholarship

Do “cultural factors” substantively influence the creation and evolution of property institutions? For the past several decades, few legal scholars have answered affirmatively. Those inclined towards a law and economics methodology tend to see property institutions as the outcome of self-interested and utilitarian bargaining, and therefore often question the analytical usefulness of “culture.” The major emerging alternative, a progressive literature that emphasizes the social embeddedness of property institutions and individuals, is theoretically more accommodating of cultural analysis but has done very little of it.

This Article develops a “cultural” theory of how property institutions are created and demonstrates that such …

Comparative Law And Private International Law, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Jurisdiction, Foundations, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The European Union: A Comparative Perspective, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter, to be included in the Oxford Principles of EU Law volume, compares the federalisms of Europe and the United States. It argues that Europe can be sensibly viewed from both federal and intergovernmental perspectives, and that particular aspects of the European Union’s structure fit each model. In particular, the EU is federal—that is, integrated to a comparable degree to the U.S.—with respect to its distribution of competences and the sovereignty attributed to EU law and institutions. But it is intergovernmental—that is, it preserves a center of gravity within the individual member states—with respect to the allocation of governmental …