Legal History Commons^™

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 …

The International Legal Order And The Rule Of Law, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

This article addresses whether international law today is capable of instituting the rule of law. It offers a renewed look at the internationalists who brought us modern international law, such as Lauterpacht, Cassin and Lemkin. They tenaciously worked at placing the individual’s right to life and to human dignity front and center in international law while also preserving peace among states. Their struggle began in earnest first in the interwar years after the “war to end all wars” (1918 – 1939), and then again in 1945 after yet another, still worse, world war had occurred, devastating Europe, but leaving the …

The Public Trust Doctrine In The 21st Century, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In this Symposium's initial lecture, I will (a) provide a glimpse into life in Medieval England to explain the context from which Magna Carta arose, (b) describe the evolution of environmental rights from Magna Carta to the Forest Carter, (c) explore in a case study how “liberties of the forest” functioned for 800 years in England's Royal Forest of Dean, ultimately sustaining the ecological systems of Dean, (d) discuss the “liberties of the forest” in light of Elinor Ostom's common pool analyses, and (e) offer some views on the question just posed. I shall start by describing the English environment …

A Recent Renaissance In Privacy Law, Margot Kaminski

Publications

Considering the recent increased attention to privacy law issues amid the typically slow pace of legal change.

Conditionality And Constitutional Change, Felix B. Chang

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The burgeoning field of Critical Romani Studies explores the persistent subjugation of Europe’s largest minority, the Roma. Within this field, it has become fashionable to draw parallels to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Yet the comparisons are often one-sided; lessons tend to flow from Civil Rights to Roma Rights more than the other way around. It is an all-too-common hagiography of Civil Rights, where our history becomes a blueprint for other movements for racial equality.

To correct this trend, this Essay reveals what American scholars can learn from Roma Rights. Specifically, this Essay argues that the European Union’s Roma integration …

Emotions In The Early Common Law (C. 1166–1215), John Hudson

Articles

Beyond dealing with wrongdoing and litigation, law has many other functions. It can be designed to make life more predictable, it can facilitate and promote certain actions, it can seek to prevent disputes by laying down rules, and provide routes to solutions other than litigation should disputes arise. All of these can have connections to matters of emotion. Using both lawbooks and records of cases from the Angevin period, the present article begins by looking at issues of land law rather than crime, and at law outside rather than inside court. It then returns to crime and litigation before exploring …

The Italian Enlightenment And The American Revolution: Cesare Beccaria's Forgotten Influence On American Law, John Bessler

All Faculty Scholarship

The influence of the Italian Enlightenment—the Illuminismo—on the American Revolution has long been neglected. While historians regularly acknowledge the influence of European thinkers such as William Blackstone, John Locke and Montesquieu, Cesare Beccaria’s contributions to the origins and development of American law have largely been forgotten by twenty-first century Americans. In fact, Beccaria’s book, Dei delitti e delle pene (1764), translated into English as On Crimes and Punishments (1767), significantly shaped the views of American revolutionaries and lawmakers. The first four U.S. Presidents—George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison—were inspired by Beccaria’s treatise and, in some cases, read …

Finding, Sharing And Risk Of Loss: Of Whales, Bees And Other Valuable Finds In Iceland, Denmark And Norway, William I. Miller, Helle Vogt

Articles

The focus of the paper is twofold: the first part is about how property rights were assigned and ranked in finds, both in those items such as bees, rings and other valuables which were previously owned, and also in those things, like whales, which were unowned. We focus on Icelandic, Danish and Norwegian laws from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, yet most of the provisions were copied into later laws and were in force up until modern times, some even current now. The second part treats the question of how risks of loss were handled, and how simple forms of …

Pre-Constitutional Law And Constitutions: Spanish Colonial Law And The Constitution Of Cádiz, M C. Mirow

Faculty Publications

This article contributes to the intellectual and legal history of this constitutional document. It also provides a close study of how pre-constitutional laws are employed in writing constitutions. It examines the way Spanish colonial law, known as "derecho indiano" in Spanish, was used in the process of drafting the Constitution and particularly the way these constitutional activities and provisions related to the Americas. The article asserts that this pre-constitutional law was used in three distinct ways: as general knowledge related to the Americas and their institutions; as a source for providing a particular answer to a specific legal question; and …

How Leadership In International Criminal Law Is Shifting From The United States To Europe And Asia: An Analysis Of Spending On And Contributions To International Criminal Courts, 55 St. Louis U. L.J. 953 (2011), Stuart K. Ford

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Code Napoléon, Buried But Ruling In Latin America, M C. Mirow

Faculty Publications

Following Maitland's famous observation on the place of the forms of action in English law at the beginning of the twentieth century, this essay argues that the Code Napoleon has had a similar effect on Latin American law. It examines various factors that have served to bury the Code and those that have served to continue its rule in Latin America. For Latin America, the author paraphrases Maitland to assert that the Code Napoleon we have buried, but it still rules us from its grave.

Pari Passu And A Distressed Sovereign's Rational Choices, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Politicizing The Crime Against Humanity: The French Example, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

The advantages of world adherence to universally acceptable standards of law and fundamental rights seemed apparent after the Second World War, as they had after the First. Their appeal seems ever greater and their advocates ever more persuasive today. The history of law provides evidence that caution may be in order, however, and that the human propensity to ignore what transpires under the surface of law threatens to dull and silence the ongoing self-examination and self-criticism required in perpetuity by the law if it is to be correlated with justice.

This Essay presents one side, the dark side, of the …

Note: English Child Custody Law, 1660-1839: The Origins Of Judicial Intervention In Parental Custody, Sarah Abramowicz

Law Faculty Research Publications

Many legal historians see pre-1839 English child custody law as consisting of near-absolute paternal rights. These historians believe that the weakening of fathers' rights began with the 1839 Custody of Infants Act, which created certain maternal custody rights. Other historians have noted that paternal custody was qualified even before 1839 by the Court of Chancerys application of the doctrine of parens patriae. This Note tells a different story and argues that the origin of incursions into the so-called "empire of the father" was the 1660 Tenures Abolition Act, a statute that ironically seemed designed to strengthen fathers' rights. The …

Book Review. Roman Law After The Fall Of Rome, David V. Snyder

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Review of: Stein, Peter, Roman Law in European History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Restitution Regimes In Post-Communist Eastern Europe: A Legal Analysis, Sophia Von Rundstedt

LLM Theses and Essays

When the Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe collapsed at the end of the last decade, the opposition, which had been united in their goal to defeat Communism, quickly disintegrated into a variety of factions. One of their tasks was to decide on enacting a constitution, in order to stabilize and entrench the new democratic institutions. Apart from establishing the legal framework for democracy, politicians had to develop strategies to convert the state-run economy into a free-market economy. Such a transition required as a first step the privatization of state property. Legal reform of property rights raises the question: …

The Roman Foundations Of European Law, William Ewald

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Societal Versus Official Law, Morris S. Arnold

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. The Professionalization Of The English County Courts, Morris S. Arnold

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Ex Nihilo Nihil, Morris S. Arnold

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Law And Fact In The Medieval Jury Trial: Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind, Morris S. Arnold

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Exchequer Equity Bibliography, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

This essay is concerned with the secondary bibliography of the equity jurisdiction of the Court of Exchequer. It forms the preliminary inquiry of a general study of the history of this jurisdiction. This bibliography is in essay form because a list would not adequately explain the comparative significance of the various works. Moreover, the titles of the works are frequently misleading; some of the earlier ones have been attributed to the wrong author, and the relationships among them have never before been sorted out. Finally, this is the only place where all of these related works have been brought together; …

The Equality Of States, A Study In The History Of Law, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

"This is a reprint in book form of three essays recently published by Dr. Goebel in the Columbia Law Review. The author attempts, as he himself has expressed it, 'to indicate that the historical background of the doctrine of equality of states in international law is of considerable importance not only for the purpose of fixing the origin of the doctrine as a coherent principle of law, but also because it indicates how necessary and inevitable the notion has been from the very inception of international relationships in Europe.'"

The Law In Its Relation To Morals And Religion, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

"Man is a religious being... Man has never lived to himself alone. His natural state has ever been a social one, in which development and enjoyment became possible only by mutual inter-dependence and social intimacy. Government is not an invention, not a necessary evil to which men submit. On the contrary... it has been man's natural instrument for controlling and developing the social estate so essential to his very existence ... [a]nd universally this government has been more or less closely related to religious institutions."

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."