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Selected Works

Bryan H. Druzin

Selected Works

Jurisprudence

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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

Anarchy, Order, And Trade: A Structuralist Account Of Why A Global Commercial Legal Order Is Emerging, Bryan H. Druzin Dec 2013

Anarchy, Order, And Trade: A Structuralist Account Of Why A Global Commercial Legal Order Is Emerging, Bryan H. Druzin

Bryan H. Druzin

While still fragmented, we are witnessing the emergence of a global commercial legal order independent of any one national legal system. This process is unfolding both on the macro-level of state actors as well as that of private individuals and organizations. On the macro-level, the sources of this legal order are complex international agreements; on the micro-level, private contracts employing commercial customary practices and arbitration are driving this process forward. Yet there is no comparable evolution occurring (in any substantial sense) in non-commercial areas of law such as criminal, tort, or family law. There is an overall asymmetry in the …

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Eating Peas With One’S Fingers: A Semiotic Approach To Law And Social Norms, Bryan H. Druzin Feb 2013

Eating Peas With One’S Fingers: A Semiotic Approach To Law And Social Norms, Bryan H. Druzin

Bryan H. Druzin

This paper proposes a semiotic theory of norms—what I term normative semiotics. The paper’s central contention is that social norms are a language. Moreover, it is a language that we instinctively learn to speak. Normative behaviour is a mode of communication, the intelligibility of which allows us to establish cooperative relationships with others. Normative behaviour communicates an actor’s potential as a cooperative partner. Compliance with a norm is an act of communication: compliance signals cooperativeness; noncompliance signals uncooperativeness. An evolutionary model is proposed to explain how this comes about: evolution has generated an instinctual proficiency in working with these signals …

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