Law Commons^™

Curses, Oaths, Ordeals And Tials Of Animals, Alan Watson

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To the outsider, a foreign legal system may at times appear irrational, with a belief in the efficacy, usually with supernatural assistance, of curses, oaths and ordeals, and that animals may properly be punished, even restrained from anti-human behaviour, after a criminal trial. But caution must be exercised. There may be little real belief that the deity will intervene-for instance, that the ordeal will reveal guilt or innocence. Rather, the society may be faced with an intolerable problem, with no reasonable solution, and the participants may resort to extraordinary legal measures as a "Last Best Chance", or "The Second Best". …

Of Pitcairn's Island And American Constitutional Theory, Dan T. Coenen

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Few tales from human experience are more compelling than that of the mutiny on the Bounty and its extraordinary aftermath. On April 28, 1789, crew members of the Bounty, led by Fletcher Christian, seized the ship and its commanding officer, William Bligh. After being set adrift with eighteen sympathizers in the Bounty's launch, Bligh navigated to landfall across 3600 miles of ocean in "the greatest open-boat voyage in the history of the sea." Christian, in the meantime, recognized that only the gallows awaited him in England and so laid plans to start a new and hidden life in the South …

Rights Of Slaves And Other Owned-Animals, Alan Watson

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Part of a number of essays which follow are written by experts from various interdisciplinary fields at the request of Animal Law.

I chose the title with deliberation. My concern in this paper is not with moral theory, but with the law that has given rights to owned-animals, and the extent to which these rights have been enforced.

I believe that there is a three-fold hierarchy as to the extent of these rights in accordance with the animal that is their object. At the top of the hierarchy are rights accorded to slaves under a legal system that is not …

Roman Slave Law: An Anglo-American Perspective, Alan Watson

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When one looks at Roman slave law from an Anglo-American perspective, what is striking is the apparent disinterest or lack of concern in the subject on the part of the state and the corresponding freedom of action allowed to slave owners. My claim is not that there was little law--indeed there was a great deal--but that the state did not get overly involved in laying down what owners could do with their slaves. For instance, though law decreed the methods by which slaves could be freed, the state imposed very few restrictions on manumission. This is all the more striking …

Aspects Of Reception Of Law, Alan Watson

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In most places at most times borrowing is the most fruitful source of legal change. The borrowing may be from within the system, by analogy - from negligence in torts to negligence in contract, for instance - or from another legal system. The act of borrowing is usually simple. To build up a theory of borrowing on the other hand, seems to be an extremely complex matter. Receptions come in all shapes and sizes: from taking over single rules to (theoretically) almost a whole system. They present an array of social phenomena that are not easily explained: from whom can …

Trade Secrets And Roman Law: The Myth Exploded, Alan Watson

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In 1929 A. Arthur Schiller published a celebrated article, Trade Secrets and the Roman Law; the Actio Servi Corrupti. His main conclusions are that the Roman owner of a mark or firm name was legally protected against unfair usage by a competitor through the actio servi corrupti, “action for making a slave worse,” which the Roman jurists used to grant commercial relief under the guise of private law actions. “If, as the writer believes [writes Schiller], various private causes of action were available in satisfying commercial needs, the state was acting in exactly the same fashion as it …

From Legal Transplants To Legal Formats, Alan Watson

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Most of the time rulers and governments in the Western world as a whole were little interested in making private law. Instead, the task devolved upon some group of the legal elite who became in effect subordinate law makers without having been given power to make law. Thus, Roman jurists as such were private individuals with no ties to government: they made law when their opinions came to win approval from other jurists. English judges in the Middle-Ages and later were appointed to decide cases: the tradition long was that they found the law but did not make it. Continental …

The End Of Roman Juristic Writing, Alan Watson

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The traditional date for the end of classical Roman law is 235 when the emperor Alexander Severus was murdered, or slightly later with the death of Modestinus, the last of the great known jurists. Thereafter, few original juristic books were written, and it is widely but not universally believed that a decline in legal standards began almost at once.

For many scholars there seems to exist a connection, sometimes simply implicit, between the failure of jurists to write new books, and a decline in legal standards. I should like to suggest there was a different reason for jurists ceasing to …

The Importance Of 'Nutshells', Alan Watson

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In modern legal systems, common law and civil law alike, and their spread over many territories in several continents, are inconceivable without the input of Nutshells often written in far-off times and in far-away places. I also want to show that the history of Nutshells vividly illumines themes that I have pressed for decades.3 First, they demonstrate the easy transmissibility of legal rules, institutions, concepts and structures from one society to other, very different, ones. Second, they indicate the frequent longevity of such rules, institutions, concepts and structures. Third, their very success is attributable to the lack of interest by …

Thinking Property At Rome, Alan Watson

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It is a commonplace among writers on slavery that there is an inherent contradiction or a necessary confusion in regarding slaves as both human beings and things. In law there is no such contradiction or confusion. Slaves are both property and human beings. Their humanity is not denied but (in general) they are refused legal personality, a very different matter.

Things as property may be classed in various ways, and the classification may then have an impact on owners' rights and duties. A thing may be corporeal or incorporeal, immoveable or moveable. Some moveables may be classed as res se …

Seventeenth-Century Jurists, Roman Law, And The Law Of Slavery, Alan Watson

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Issues of slavery and slave law were of considerable theoretical interest to continental European jurists in the seventeenth century. They lived in a different world from American colonists of European descent because they had no direct experience of slave holding and no immediate financial involvement. Their interest stemmed from the fact that their education was in Roman law; and not only was Roman law the most revered system, but slaves were prominent in it. For the jurists' attitudes we must remember that, at least in theory, there were no slaves in territories such as the Dutch Republic, Germany, or France. …

Priorities In Accounts: The Crazy Quilt Of Current Law And A Proposal For Reform, Dan T. Coenen

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Moe Promisee has a right under a contract to receive monetary payments from Mae Promisor. Moe assigns his right first to Faye and then to Clay. Whom must Mae pay, Faye or Clay? For more than a century, judges have struggled with successive assignments to different persons of the same contract right. These cases which typically involve rights to monetary payments called "accounts" have generated subtleties of doctrine and disagreements among courts. Today, as a general rule, the Uniform Commercial Code controls these cases. Ambiguities, however, lurk in the code. Cryptic common-law doctrines also continue to govern many successive-assignment problems. …

The Scottish Enlightenment, The Democratic Intellect And The Work Of Madame Justice Wilson, Alan Watson

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To talk of Madame Justice Wilson in the context of her Scottish background, the Scottish Enlightenment and the Democratic Intellect is one of the most exciting yet daunting tasks I have undertaken. A huge problem, which I will mention first but not discuss, has been to get to grips with her towering intellect. As will become clear, this problem was much diminished by Madame Justice Wilson herself: she writes with a simplicity, grace, rationality and humanity that may even lead one to underestimate the complexity of her thought.

A Slave's Marriage: Dowry Or Deposit, Alan Watson

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This articles examines the concept of dowry among marriage of slaves in ancient Rome.

Roman Law And English Law: Two Patterns Of Legal Development, Alan Watson

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It is commonplace among scholars to link in thought the growth of Roman law and of English law. S.F.C. Milsom begins his distinguished Historical Foundations of the Common Law with the words: "It has happened twice only that the customs of European peoples were worked up into intellectual systems of law; and much of the world today is governed by laws derived from the one or the other." More strikingly, some scholars see an essential similarity in legal approaches in the two systems. Fritz Pringsheim entitled a well-known article The Inner Relationship Between English and Roman Law. W.W. Buckland and …

The Transformation Of American Property Law: A Comparative Law Approach, Alan Watson

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This Article looks at aspects of a particular societal problem as it was approached at different historical periods in Roman, French, and American property law. The main point of the Article is to clarify understanding of the American course of development through an awareness of how the problem was dealt with elsewhere. This awareness will cast doubt on the simplicity of the American course of development as explained in a distinguished book, and on the relationship of the legal development to economic change. In THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN LAW, 1780-1860, Morton J. Horwitz seeks "to show that one of the …

The Evolution Of Law: Continued, Alan Watson

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In my book The Evolution of Law I sought to give a general theory of legal evolution based on detailed legal examples from which generalizations could be drawn, offering as few examples as were consistent with my case in order to present as clear a picture as possible. I was well aware as I was writing that some critics would regard the examples as mere isolated aberrations and for them and for other readers who, whether convinced of the thesis or not, would like further evidence, I want here to bring forward a few extra significant examples.

Means, Ends And Original Intent: A Response To Charles Cooper, Michael Wells

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Charles Cooper believes that the ninth amendment should be read at once more broadly and more narrowly than it is today. In his view, the intent of the Framers was to cabin the power of the federal government. By taking note in the ninth amendment of rights other than those enumerated in the first eight, they sought to ensure that the national government would not exercise powers beyond those listed in the Constitution. Since the aim of the ninth amendment was to keep the federal government one of limited power, it is inappropriate to apply the amendment to the states, …

Legal Evolution And Legislation, Alan Watson

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For several years I have been working on two relationships: the relationship between legal rules and the society in which they operate, and the relationship between sources of law and the way law evolves. Some critics have suggested that in discussing the evolution of law, I have understated the revolutionary force of legislation and statutory law. This issue will be the focus of this article.

Correspondence (Letter To The Editor), Alan Watson

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In "A Comment on the Critical Method in Legal History," 6 Cardozo L. Rev. 997 (1985), Mark Tushnet responded to Alan Watson's review of his book, THE AMERICAN LAW OF SLAVERY, 1810-1860, which appeared at 91 Yale L.J. 1034 (1982). In a letter to the Editor-in-Chief of the Cardozo Law Review reproduced below, Professor Watson launches the next salvo in their ongoing debate by comparing quotes from Critical Method, THE AMERICAN LAW OF SLAVERY, the Yale book review, and other sources.

A House Of Lords' Judgment, And Other Tales Of The Absurd, Alan Watson

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In this paper I want to look at four approaches to deciding a case in different societies-contemporary England, uncodified civil or 'mixed' law systems (with an example from 17th century Scot-land and another from early 20th century South Africa), 19th century France after codification, 15th century Germany with a glance at 13th and 14th century Spain-where the attempt is made each time to reach the correct decision by applying the mental process thought most appropriate. None of the approaches examined here is result-oriented, and to outsiders, especially to lawyers brought up in a different legal culture, the mental process seems …

The Future Of The Common Law Tradition, Alan Watson

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What, then, can one say about the common law tradition as it will develop in the relatively near future? In terms of the future development of the common law systems, three facts seem certain and decisive. In the first place, there has been, as a matter of observable fact, a great shift in the balance of lawmaking in the common law world from judicial precedent to legislation, which together comprise the two main sources of law. In the second place, there is a deep awareness in the common law countries of a crisis in lawmaking, an awareness that is probably …

The Evolution Of Law: The Roman System Of Contracts, Alan Watson

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I have two aims in producing this paper. First, I wish to contribute to the general understanding of how and why law develops and explain the evolution of some very familiar legal institutions. Second, I wish to add to our knowledge of the history of Roman law, by producing a radically different view of the development of contracts, that is, I believe, both consistent with surviving textual data and plausible with regard to human behavior.

An Approach To Customary Law, Alan Watson

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A proper understanding of the nature of customary law is important for legal historians. For students of European legal history, customary law is particularly important; from post-Roman times to the beginning of the modern legal age in the eighteenth century, the two main elements in European law have been Roman law and legal custom. In large measure, the main task of lawyers of that interim time period was to unify or harmonize the two strands of Roman law and custom.

Customary law flourishes in circumstances where law is likely to be the least theoretical. Yet, the nature of any source …

A Note On The Georgia Contracts Code, Julian B. Mcdonnell

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Among all of these codes, the present Code of Georgia enjoys a distinguished pedigree. It traces its origins and many of its provisions to the original Georgia Code of 1860. The story of that original Georgia Code has been largely lost to history, undoubtedly because it arrived simultaneously with the Civil War. For its time, the Georgia Code of 1860 was a remarkable legal document. Previous codifications in Anglo-American jurisdictions had been limited to reducing statutory materials to systematic written form or establishing new procedural systems. The Georgia Code of 1860 was the first codification of the substantive areas of …

The Origins Of Usus, Alan Watson

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It has long been recognized that the XII Tables was not a complete statement of the law, and that some topics of great legal importance were either not set out or were very partially treated. The general opinion has been, however, that the fragmentary state of our knowledge of the XII Tables' provisions makes it impossible to be precise as to the the topics not dealt with or treated only in part. Recently, though, I have tried to show that we have some information on the great majority of the clauses in the XII Tables: hence on this view, where …

The Mixed Courts Of Egypt: A Study Of The Use Of Natural Law And Equity, Gabriel M. Wilner

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The system of Mixed Courts in Egypt was an unusual institution. It represented an international solution in the context of what was obviously a colonial situation. The system lasted 74 years from 1876 to 1949. A system of law was established whose sources were general codes created especially for use by the Mixed Courts. The Charter of the Mixed Courts specified two residual sources of law. It is these sources and their application upon which this paper is principally focused. Article 34 reads: "The new Courts, in the exercise of their jurisdiction in civil and commercial matters, and within the …

Emptio, "Taking", Alan Watson

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According to Festus, "Emere, quod nunc est mer cari, antiqui acdpiebant pro sumere" and modern philologists do accept some such meaning as the original in Latin.)

The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae) however, thinks there is no certain example of this sense of emere and considers the instances adduced by Skutsch) to be scarcely convincing. I should like to produce for consideration a different instance drawn from the derivative emptio or emptor. The instance in question may not take us as far back as emere = sumere but will at least to emere = accipere.

Emptio, "Taking", Alan Watson

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According to Festus, "Emere, quod nunc est mer cari, antiqui acdpiebant pro sumere" and modern philologists do accept some such meaning as the original in Latin. The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae however, thinks there is no certain example of this sense of emere and considers the instances adduced by Skutsch to be scarcely convincing. I should like to produce for consideration a different instance drawn from the derivative emptio or emptor. The instance in question may not take us as far back as emere = sumere but will at least to emere = accipere. Roman legal tradition tells us that the …

A New Role For An Ancient Writ: Postconviction Habeas Corpus Relief In Georgia (Part Ii), Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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In Part I of this Article, appearing in Volume 8 of the Georgia Law Review at page 313, Professor Wilkes traced the development of postconviction habeas corpus in Georgia up to 1967. In this the second part of the Article, he examines the background and passage of the Georgia Habeas Corpus Act of 1967. Finally, Professor Wilkes assesses the degree to which the Act has fulfilled its purposes, and suggests several possible changes for the future.