Law Commons^™

The Future Of The Common Law Tradition, Alan Watson

Scholarly Works

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

Scholarly Works

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

Scholarly Works

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 …