Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Lugano Case In The European Court Of Justice: Evolving European Union Competence In Private International Law, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

On October 19, 2004, the European Court of Justice held its first en banc hearing since the 2004 enlargement to twenty-five Member States. The case was Opinion 1/03, involving a request by the Council of the European Union on whether the Community has exclusive or shared competence to conclude the Lugano Convention. While the case on its face deals only with a single convention, it has far broader implications and is likely to influence the development of private international law and private law on a Community level for years to come. This brief article traces the origins of the issues …

The Rule Of Law: China's Skepticism And The Rule Of People, Pat K. Chew

Articles

The West believes that without formal legal rules (the rule of law), how society operates is not transparent. This opaqueness in how things get done discourages trade, including foreign investment, which in turn makes overall economic development more difficult. Instead of predictable legal rules, the fear is that the void will be filled with unpredictable and arbitrary human indiscretions. Furthermore, the West believes that the absence of the rule of law makes the basic protection of human and civil rights problematic.

However, the Western view of the rule of law is not the only model. Alternative cultural assumptions about the …