Geoffrey Samuel's distinctive approach is to present the English common law in the light of its history and its dominant ideas. A student will learn not only what are the major rules of private law and civil law procedure, but will grasp the spirit of the common law. He will thus learn why they exist in a particular form and how common lawyers make them work. Civilian terms are used to provide a guide for the student from a civil law system to understand the initially strange terms and approaches of the common lawyer. This book is clear and insightful. It should be read particularly by Masters students and those embarking on a doctorate involving study of the common law.' - John Bell, Pembroke College, UK'To write a good introduction to the common law aimed mainly at civil lawyers is a real challenge. One needs not only to master the common law, its history and its sociological backgrounds, but also to understand how the prospective readers think in their own civilian legal systems. With his longstanding teaching activities in civil law countries, his obvious deep knowledge of the historical roots of civil and common law, Geoffrey Samuel offers here a book which should be pressed into every hands across the civil law world. Finally, we get here an introduction to the common law truly written for civilian lawyers and students, which is easy to understand and thoughtful. A brilliant piece for which the author should be praised.' - Pascal Pichonnaz, University of Fribourg, Switzerland 'Common law has remained enigmatic for lawyers from the civil law legal culture. This book presents a wonderfully compact introduction to the English common law and explains concisely why it is as it is today. Geoffrey Samuel offers insightful and scholarly first-rate representation of those characteristics which stand out for the civil law lawyer. Clarifying and supporting diagrams are especially helpful for non-common law lawyers. Samuel's A Short Introduction to the Common Law is highly recommended for anyone looking for clear and fluently written basic insight into the common law and its historical foundation.' - Jaakko Husa, University of Lapland, Finland This book provides a short, accessible introduction to the English common law tradition, in particular to the civil process. It adopts an approach which explains the historical development of the common law institutions and procedures whilst also setting them in perspective through a comparative outlook. Aspects of the common law are contrasted on occasions with structural or functional equivalents (or near equivalents) in the civil law. The key topics covered include: the English civil courts (and other dispute resolution institutions and alternatives), civil procedure, remedies, sources of law, legal reasoning, legal education, legal theories, legal institutions and concepts and legal categories. In addition to textual description and analysis, the book makes frequent use of visual diagrams to explain and to illustrate aspects of the common law. Providing both an overview of the English common law and an insight into the legal mentality of common lawyers, the book will appeal both to first year law students as well as to continental jurists who are investigating the common law for the first time. Contents: Preface Introduction 1. Development of the English Courts 2. Development of the English Procedural Tradition 3. English Law Remedies 4. English Legal Education and English Legal Thought (1): Sources and Methods 5. English Legal Education and English Legal Thought (2): Academic Theories 6. Legal Institutions and Concepts in the Common Law (1): Persons and Things 7. Legal Institutions and Concepts in the Common Law (2): Causes of Action and Obligations Concluding Remarks Bibliography Index

What makes a great book? If the determining factors are the content,authorship and timing of publication then this collection of essays from some of Europe's most eminent judges and jurists satisfies all three criteria. Readers will here find the expanded versions of the speeches given at a one-day conference in London to mark, from a legal point of view, the beginning of the new millennium. In a thoughtful and predominantly comparative manner the distinguished speakers explore the cross fertilisation of ideas that is taking place between the Common and Civil law systems in such important topics as human rights, commercial law, and comparative methodology. The contributors include Lords Irvine, Bingham, Woolf, Steyn, and Goff, the President of the Court of the European Communities, Dr Iglesias, the President of the Court of Human Rights, Dr Wildhaber, the President of the German Constitutional Court, Professor Limbach, Justices Lenoir and Mirabelli, respectively of the French and Italian Constitutional Courts, the Professor Walter van Gerven, former Advocate General of the Court of the European Communities, Professor Klaus Hopt, co-Director of the Max-Planck Institute of Hamburg, Professor Christian von Bar, Director of the Institute of Comparative Law at the University of Osnabruck and the organiser of the conference, Professor Basil Markesinis, Director of the Oxford Institute of European and Comparative Law. The book commences with a Foreword by Keith Clark, Senior Partner of the multinational law firm, Clifford Chance, who have sponsored the conference. This is a unique book about legal practice in the increasingly integrated world of tomorrow.

Previous works on Southern African law have been directed primarily to lawyers and students of law within Southern Africa; this is the first major text on the topic written for use in common law countries. The book identifies and describes judgments in Southern Africa courts that are significant for their treatment of conflicts and tort issues and can serve as authorities or models in common law jurisdictions. The most important legislative reforms in related subjects are also described. The text provides lawyers in common law countries access to the Southern African cases and statutes most pertinent to questions of conflict of laws and torts that arise in common law jurisdiction. The judgments surveyed span the years 1947 to the present. Most are from South Africa and Zimbabwe (before and after independence), Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, and South West Africa/Namibia; the South African national states are also represented. Helpful English-language commentaries on cases and statutes discussed in the text are cited in the notes. Quick reference tables of cases and statutes, and indexes of principal works cited and abbrevations complete this useful guide. This invaluable sourcebook will allow lawyers and scholars in common law countries to benefit from recognition and appropriate use of Southern Africa's contributions to the common law in torts and conflict of laws.

England was unique among the medieval kingdoms of Western Europe. In addition to developing a system of national courts with an extensive original jurisdiction and run on quasi-bureaucratic lines by royal justices, it also gave birth to a single national customary law which was applicable throughout the country. This was partly the product of judicial decisions made by the royal courts and partly the product of legislation. The great formative period of the Commom Law began during the reign of King Henry II but continued through to the early fourteenth century. Paul Brand possesses an unrivalled knowledge of the published and unpublished sources for this critical period. The Making of the Common Law brings together his essays, some previously unpublished, on this period. The essays on the making of the English legal system (which complement his book on The Origins of the English Legal Profession) include an important essay on 'Henry II and the Creation of the English Common Law', and 'Courtroom and Schoolroom: The Education of Lawyers in England prior to 1400', the essay which won the 1988 Donald W. Sutherland Prize of the American Society for Legal History.The devlopment of English law is discussed in a number of essays including a critical introduction to the 'Milsom thesis' on the origins of England land law and 'Lordship and Distraint in Thirteenth-Century England', a major reappraisal of the balance of power between lords and tenants in this period. The Common Law was taken by settler from England to North America and to Australasia. Its earliest venture overseas, however, was to Ireland. The Making of the Common Law includes a number of important essays on the transfer of English law and the creation of a legal system modelled on that of England in the medieval English lordship of Ireland.

In the two related works in this volume, Bentham offers a detailed critique of William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-9). In "Comment on the Commentaries," on which Bentham began work in 1774, he exposes the fallacies which he claims to have detected in Blackstone, and criticizes the theory of the Common Law. He goes on to provide important reflections on the nature of law, and more particularly on the nature of customary and of statute law, and on judicial interpretation.
A Fragment on Government, which was published in 1776, was detached from the "Comment on the Commentaries." Concentrating on a passage of five or six pages in which Blackstone discusses the origin of society and government, Bentham offers three main criticisms. First, he criticizes Blackstone's methodology for failing to distinguish between the role of the expositor and the role of the censor, and thereby confusing the question of what the law is with the question of what the law ought to be. Second, he criticizes Blackstone's assumption that the theory of the social contract represents an adequate justification of the obligation to obey government. Third, he criticizes Blackstone's theory of sovereignty, which claims that in every state there must exist some absolute, undivided power, whose commands are law. Bentham points to the existence of states where sovereign power is both divided and limited.
In these two works, published by OUP for the first time, Bentham outlines a number of themes which he goes on to develop in his later works: the principle of utility; the importance of a "natural arrangement" for a legal system; the point at which resistance to government becomesjustifiable; the exposition of legal terms; and much more.
The volume also contains Bentham's "Preface" intended for, but not published in, the second edition of A Fragment on Government, which appeared in 1823. Having by this committed himself to political radicalism, Bentham uses this occasion to reflect on the text and the circumstances in which it was produced.
The text has been edited by H.L.A. Hart and J.H. Burns, whose reputations in their respective fields of legal theory and history of political thought are unsurpassed. The volume contains an Editorial Introduction which explains the provenance of the text, and the method of presentation. The texts are fully annotated with textual and historical notes, and the volume is completed with a detailed subject index, based on a methodology devised by Hart.

One of the greatest of all English common lawyers,Lord Atkin it was who asked the question in Donoghue v. Stevenson 'Who then in law is my neighbour?' which became the foundation of the whole modern law of negligence. His courageous dissent in the wartime detention case of Liversidge v. Anderson is now recognised as a historic stand on principle. This book contains absorbing accounts of the background to these two great cases, as well as an assessment of their significance in the legal history of this century. It is the only legal biography of its kind. Instead of taking the conventional narrative form it treats individually the principal themes of Lord Atkin's decisions and illuminates some less well known aspects of his work including the critical series of Canadian constitutional appeals in 1936. In showing the strong influence on his thinking of Lord Atkin's home life and upbringing in the Welsh countryside, this study confirms Lord Wright's conclusion that it was first and foremost a liberal spirit which animated Atkin's work. This is a reprint of a work first published by Butterworths in 1983.

An historical analysis of the development and reform of the law of prior obligations as expressed in preexisting duty rule and past consideration rule. Teeven's principal focus is on the judicial rationalization of common law reforms to partially remove the bar to enforcement of promises grounded in the past. This study traces American deviations from English common law doctrine over the past two centuries in developing theories to overcome traditional impediments to recovery presented by the law of prior obligations. It also explores ideas for further reforms found buried in past case law. The growing unease with both the dashing of legitimate consensual expectations and the perceived unfairness to naive, ill-informed, and otherwise disadvantaged parties served as the impetus for liberalization of the exclusive contract bargain test. The resultant reforms adhered to the modern realist emphasis on fairness. The expansion of contractual liability to include promises looking to the past encompasses some of the most important reforms of the consideration contract since its genesis. As a consequence, contractual liability can no longer be defined solely in terms of bargain consideration since contract law now includes a broader range of promissory liability.

The Best Edition of this Classic History: A Comprehensive Legal History of England from the Anglo-Saxon Period through the 19th Century. Theodore Frank Thomas Plucknett 1897-1965] received his LL.B. from the University of Cambridge in 1920. He was a Fellow of the British Academy, Professor of Legal History, University of London, and Assistant Professor of Legal History at Harvard University. He was also the author of Early English Legal Literature (1958) and Edward I and Criminal Law (1960). "Professor Plucknett has such a solid reputation on both sides of the Atlantic that one expects from his pen only what is scholarly and accurate... Nor is the expectation likely to be disappointed in this book. Plucknett's book is not...a mere epitome of what is to be found elsewhere. He has explored on his own account many regions of legal history and, even where the ground has been already quartered, he has fresh methods of mapping it. The title which he has chosen is, in view of the contents of the volume, rather a narrow one. It might equally well have been A Concise History of English Law... In conjunction with Readings on the History and System of the Common Law by Dean Pound...this book will give an excellent grounding to the student of English legal history." --Percy H. Winfield. Harvard Law Review 43 (1929-30) 339-340. " T]his book, comprehensive yet not elementary, clear yet inviting further study on the part of the reader, remains an excellent introduction to legal history and the study of law."-- Harvard Law Review 50 (1937-38) 1012. SELECTED CONTENTS BOOK ONE A General Survey of Legal History Part I The Crown and the State Part II The Courts and the Profession Part III Some Factors in Legal History Book TWO Special Part Part I Procedure Part II Crime and Tort Part III Real Property Part IV Contract Part V Equity Part VI Succession Index

This is the first ever index of contributions to common law Festschriften and fills a serious bibliographic gap in the literature of the common law. The German word Festschrift is now the universally accepted term in the academy for a published collection of legal essays written by several authors to honour a distinguished jurist or to mark a significant legal event. The number of Festschriften honouring common lawyers has increased enormously in the last thirty years. Until now, the numerous scholarly contributions to these volumes have not been adequately indexed. This Index fills that bibliographic gap. The entries included in this work refer to some 296 common law Festschriften indexed by author, subject keyword, editor, title, honorand and date. It therefore includes over 5,000 chapter entries. In addition, there are more than a thousand entries of English language contributions to predominantly foreign language, non-common law legal Festschriften from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

"The ornament of the Common Law." Lyttleton, His Treatise of Tenures, in French and English. A New Edition, Printed From the Most Ancient Copies, And Collated With the Various Readings of the Cambridge MSS. To Which Are Added The Ancient Treatise of the Olde Tenures, And the Customs of Kent. Originally published: London: S. Sweet, 1841. lv, 1], 727 pp. Hardcover. New.
With index. Parallel text in Law-French and English. Written during the reign of Edward IV 1442-1483], Littleton's Tenures was much admired for its learning and style. It is concerned with the doctrines of old English Common Law regarding the tenures of real estate as well as issues related to real property. This venerable work, which Coke called "the ornament of the Common Law, and the most perfect and absolute work that ever was written in any humane science," is a considered a landmark because it renounced the principles of Roman law in favor of a set of guidelines and doctrines drawn from the Year Books, and when necessary, hypothetical cases.
Sir Thomas Littleton 1402-1481] was a King's Serjeant, Judge of Assize and Justice of the Common Pleas.
T.E. Tomlins 1804-1872] was a notable legal writer and antiquarian. His is best known for his Popular-Law Dictionary (1838). (He is confused sometime with his uncle, Sir Thomas Edlyne Tomlins, the prolific legal writer and editor of the later editions of Jacob's Law-Dictionary.)

Seeking to fill a gap in our knowledge of the legal history of the nineteenth century, this volume studies the influence of Roman and civil law upon the development of common law jurisdictions in the United States and in Great Britain. M. H. Hoeflich examines the writings of a variety of prominent Anglo-American legal theorists to show how Roman and civil law helped common law thinkers develop their own theories.

Intellectual leaders in law in the United States and Great Britain used Roman and civil law in different ways at different times. The views of these lawyers were greatly respected even by nonlawyers, and most of them wrote to influence a wider public. By filling in the gaps in the history of jurisprudence, this volume also provides greater understanding of the development of Anglo-American culture and society.

The volume is a thoroughly revised edition of the author's book on German Administrative Law which was first published in 1985. From the perspective of a common law jurisdiction the author presents the basic framework of German administrative law, along the lines administrative law is understood in the English speaking world. It covers all the essential elements of German administrative law. It is updated to include the latest developments and the impact of EC law in different spheres.

This book examines the way in which judges in the top courts of nine different common law countries go about developing the law by devising new principles to allow themselves to be innovative and justice-oriented, and to ensure that human rights are universally protected.
The book surveys the decisions of these top courts over the last generation to determine how 'judicially active' they have been. It seeks to compare and contrast the different experiences and to identify the principles in accordance with which the various courts have decided to develop the law. How do they interpret legislation? What use do they make of standards derived from other countries or from international law? How willing are they to make law in areas which are traditionally the preserve of elected politicians?
The contributors are all experts in their own jurisdictions and have already published widely in the field of judicial activism. The jurisdictions covered include Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. The chapter on the judicial work of the House of Lords anticipates the transformation of that institution into the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2009 and the book as a whole suggests that there is plenty of scope for that new court to learn from other common law supreme courts about the appropriate limits of judicial creativity.

The impact of the European Convention on Human Rights on public and criminal law has been well documented. The common law will be equally revolutionised by the Convention,yet its future is uncharted. This collection of papers, the product of two seminars held jointly with 1 Crown Office Row and the human rights group Justice, offers some navigational aids to those confronted with these deep waters. It contains analyses of current law and predictions for the future from practitioners and experts in a range of common law fields, including clinical negligence, medical law, environmental law, mental health and defamation. In addition to these specific areas, these chapters also explore the relationship between the ECHR principles of proportionality and margin of appreciation and the traditional way of resolving common law disputes. The book also includes a detailed - and controversial - scrutiny of the compatibility of the legal aid and costs proposals with the procedural right to a fair trial guaranteed by the Convention. CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION William Edis 2 THE CONVENTION AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT: A NEW WAY OF THINKING Philip Havers QC and Neil Garnham 3 COSTS, CONDITIONAL FEES AND LEGAL AID Guy Mansfield QC 4 HORIZONTALITY: THE APPLICATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS IN PRIVATE DISPUTES Jonathan Cooper 5 REMEDIES Rosalind English 6 GENERAL COMMON LAW CLAIMS AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT Richard Booth 7 BRINGING AND DEFENDING A CONVENTION CLAIM IN DOMESTIC LAW: A PRACTICAL EXERCISE Philippa Whipple 8 THE IMPACT OF THE CONVENTION ON MEDICAL LAW Philip Havers QC and Neil Sheldon 9 CLINICAL NEGLIGENCE AND PERSONAL INJURY LITIGATION Robert Owen QC, Sarah Lambert and Caroline Neenan 10 ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS David Hart 11 CONFIDENTIALITY AND DEFAMATION Rosalind English 12 MENTAL HEALTH Jeremy Hyam 13 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND GUIDE TO Sources Owain Thomas

As an administrative officer in the Egyptian Government, the author compiled a digest of the law and practice of the Bedouin Courts, together with an account of desert life and customs.

This book examines the interface between religion, charity law and human rights. It does so by treating the Church of England and its current circumstances as a timely case study providing an opportunity to examine the tensions that have now become such a characteristic feature of that interface.
Firstly, it suggests that the Church is the primary source of canon law principles that have played a formative role in shaping civic morality throughout the common law jurisdictions: the history of their emergence and enforcement by the State in post-Reformation England is recorded and assessed. Secondly, it reveals that of such principles those of greatest weight were associated with matters of sexuality: in particular, for centuries, family law was formulated and applied with regard for the sanctity of the heterosexual marital family which provided the only legally permissible context for any form of sexual relationship. Thirdly, given that history, it identifies and assesses the particular implications that now arise for the Church as a consequence of recent charity law reform outcomes and human rights case law developments: a comparative analysis of religion related case law is provided. Finally, following an outline of the structure and organizational functions of the Church, a detailed analysis is undertaken of its success in engaging with these issues in the context of the Lambeth Conferences, the wider Anglican Communion and in the ill-fated Covenant initiative.From the perspective of the dilemmas currently challenging the moral authority of the Church of England, this book identifies and explores the contemporary moral imperatives or red line issues that now threaten the coherence of Christian religions in most leading common law nations. Gay marriage and abortion are among the host of morally charged and deeply divisive topics demanding a reasoned response and leadership from religious bodies. Attention is given to the judicial interpretation and evaluation of these and other issues that now undermine the traditional role of the Church of England. As the interface between religion, charity law and human rights becomes steadily more fractious, with religious fundamentalism and discrimination acquiring a higher profile, there is now a pressing need for a more balanced relationship between those with and those without religious beliefs.
This book will be an invaluable aid in starting the process of achieving a triangulated relationship between the principles of canon law, charity law and human rights law.
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This book argues that Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., helps us see the law through an Emersonian lens by the way in which he wrote his judicial dissents. Holmes's literary style mimics and enacts two characteristics of Ralph Waldo Emerson's thought: "superfluity" and the "poetics of transition," concepts ascribed to Emerson and developed by literary critic Richard Poirier. Using this aesthetic style borrowed from Emerson and carried out by later pragmatists, Holmes not only made it more likely that his dissents would remain alive for future judges or justices (because how they were written was itself memorable, whatever the value of their content), but also shaped our understanding of dissents and, in this, our understanding of law. By opening constitutional precedent to potential change, Holmes's dissents made room for future thought, moving our understanding of legal concepts in a more pragmatic direction and away from formalistic understandings of law. Included in this new understanding is the idea that the "canon" of judicial cases involves oppositional positions that must be sustained if the law is to serve pragmatic purposes. This process of precedent-making in a common-law system resembles the construction of the literary canon as it is conceived by Harold Bloom and Richard Posner.

Principles of Law and Economics, Third Edition provides a comprehensive yet accessible guide to the field of law and economics. With its focus on principles, and use of illustrative examples, this is the ideal introduction for law students, with or without prior knowledge of economics. The textbook focuses largely on the economics of core areas in common law: property, contract and tort, with additional chapters on criminal law, procedural matters and family law. This updated third edition also includes a chapter on the economics of corporate law that addresses the key issues surrounding the nature of the firm and the incentives attached to corporate legal structures. Key features include:? Clear and succinct language used throughout with limited use of jargon or specialist terms An educational design which is accessible for use by students of law and economics alike? Economic analysis and legal principles treated in a self-contained manner for ease of reference? Legal cases summarized for the benefit of highlighting relevant economic issues ? A focus on the common law, including comparative references to civil law? Review questions at the end of each chapter to encourage further analysis and debate around key topics. The clear and non-technical approach to the subject matter makes this a perfect text for law students, or indeed for students in economics or business studies who are studying law and economics for the first time.