Law Commons^™

Authority Heuristics, David J. Gerber

All Faculty Scholarship

Language plays two roles in acquiring knowledge of foreign law. One is obvious - it provides access to information. Language also performs, however, a second function that is less frequently acknowledged, but no less important: it shapes what we know. This knowledge-shaping (or "cognitive") role conditions all knowledge of foreign law, and it is seldom explored. This article focuses on one aspect of this cognitive role of language. It examines the ways in which assumptions about the authority of legal language shape and often fundamentally distort our knowledge of foreign law and foreign legal systems. My central claim is that …