When an economic collapse, natural disaster, epidemic outbreak, terrorist attack, or internal crisis puts a country in dire need, governments must rise to the occasion to protect their citizens, sometimes employing the full scope of their powers. How do political systems that limit government control under normal circumstances allow for the discretionary and potentially unlimited power that such emergencies sometimes seem to require? Constitutional systems aim to regulate government behavior through stable and predictable laws, but when their citizens' freedom, security, and stability are threatened by exigencies, often the government must take extraordinary action regardless of whether it has the legal authority to do so. In Extra-Legal Power and Legitimacy: Perspectives on Prerogative, Clement Fatovic and Benjamin A. Kleinerman examine the costs and benefits associated with different ways that governments have wielded extra-legal powers in times of emergency. They survey distinct models of emergency governments and draw diverse and conflicting approaches by joining influential thinkers into conversation with one another. Chapters by eminent scholars illustrate the earliest frameworks of prerogative, analyze American perspectives on executive discretion and extraordinary power, and explore the implications and importance of deliberating over the limitations and proportionality of prerogative power in contemporary liberal democracy. In doing so, they re-introduce into public debate key questions surrounding executive power in contemporary politics.

Judicial errors, deliberate or otherwise, often cause damage to litigants. Sometimes the damage suffered by the litigant is irreversible. In England and many other common law countries the injured person will normally have no redress because of the privilege of immunity from suit enjoyed by judges. This result also normally follows when the complaint is against the actions of someone acting in a quasi-judicial capacity. The situation then raises a number of questions, including questions about civil rights, the redress of wrongs, and the whole foundation of judicial independence. As more people resort to the courts and other judicial tribunals for the resolution of their disputes the question of the proper approach to injurious judicial errors becomes more important, especially since every participant in judicial proceedings is a potential victim. This book presents an in-depth study of the substantive, procedural and theoretical issues that arise when a judge is to be sued. The material is drawn mainly from English and American Federal case law. The study however also incorporates some Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand case law.

This book is about judicial reasoning in human rights cases. The aim is to explore the question: how is it that notionally universal norms are reasoned by courts in such significantly different ways? What is the shape of this reasoning; which techniques are common across the transnational jurisprudence; and which are particular? The book, comprising contributions by a team of world-leading human rights scholars, moves beyond simply addressing the institutional questions concerning courts and human rights, which often dominate discussions of this kind, seeking instead a deeper examination of the similarities and divergence of reasonings by different courts when addressing comparable human rights questions. These differences, while partly influenced by institutional concerns, cannot be attributed to them alone. This book explores the diverse and rich underlying spectrum of human rights reasoning, as a distinctive and particular form of legal reasoning, evident in the case studies across the selected jurisdictions.

In Supranational Citizenship and the Challenge of Diversity Francesca Strumia explores the potential of European citizenship as a legal construct, and as a marker of group boundaries, for filtering internal and external diversities in the European Union. Adopting comparative federalism methodology, and drawing on insights from the international relations literature on the diffusion of norms, the author questions the impact of European citizenship on insider/outsider divides in the EU, as experienced by immigrants, set by member states and perceived by "native" citizens. The book proposes a novel argument about supranational citizenship as mutual recognition of belonging. This argument has important implications for the constitution of insider/outsider divides and for the reconciliation of multiple levels of diversity in the EU.

There has been an enormous expansion of individual employment rights in Britain but their practical impact in terms of delivering fairer workplaces can be questioned. Taking as its starting point the widespread acknowledgement of problems with the major enforcement mechanism, the Employment Tribunals, this collection brings together experts from law, sociology and employment relations to explore a range of alternative regulatory and non-regulatory approaches to enforcement and to securing compliance and to consider factors affecting variation in the extent to which legal rights have meaning and impact at the workplace. Thus this book addresses issues key to contemporary policy and academic debate. Chapters discuss the growth in employment rights and their enforcement mechanisms (Gillian Morris), problems with the employment tribunal system and the current and potential role of alternative dispute resolution (Linda Dickens); reflect on the long experience of enforcement of equality rights (Bob Hepple) and agency enforcement of health and safety legislation under the 'better regulation' agenda (Steve Tombs and David Whyte); evaluate the potential of various 'reflexive law' mechanisms, including corporate governance (Simon Deakin, Colm McLaughlin and Dominic Chai), and of procurement (Christopher McCrudden) as strategies for delivering fairness at the workplace. Factors influencing how statutory rights shape workplace practice are illuminated further in chapters on trade unions and individual legal rights (Trevor Colling), the management of employment rights (John Purcell) and regulation and small firms (Paul Edwards).The opening chapter (Dickens) makes the case for addressing issues of enforcement and compliance in terms of adverse treatment at work, while the final chapter (Dickens) considers why successive governments have been reluctant to act and outlines steps which might be taken - were there sufficient political will to do so - to help make employment rights effective in promoting fairer workplaces.

The vast expansion of international trade has greatly increased the incidence of cross-border ownership of assets, both tangible and intangible. It is not uncommon, for instance, for a business to own both physical plant and intellectual property in two or more jurisdictions. Under these circumstances, it is vital for business persons and their counsel to have some knowledge of a variety of relevant domestic legal regimes, particularly in regard to available remedies. This text provides the essential details of such knowledge for 14 important commercial jurisdictions: Argentina, Belgium, Bermuda, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, England and Wales (United Kingdom), and the US. Each country survey is presented by an experienced business law practitioner in his or her particular jurisdiction. Each chapter's coverage includes discussion of remedies under such security interests as: real estate; fixtures; movables; patents; trademarks; and industrial models and designs. Each author also explains important procedural aspects of many typical phases of ownership, including registration, transfer, sale of an ongoing concern or stock in trade, taxation, trusteeship, and injunction orders. Remedies under private international law are also considered.

This collection is the multifaceted result of an effort to learn from those who have been educated in an American law school and who then returned to their home countries to apply the lessons of that experience in nations experiencing social, economic, governmental, and legal transition. Written by an international group of scholars and practitioners, this work provides a unique insight into the ways in which legal education impacts the legal system in the recipient's home country, addressing such topics as efforts to influence the current style of legal education in a country and the resistance faced from entrenched senior faculty and the use of U.S. legal education methods in government and private legal practice. This book will be of significant interest not only to legal educators in the United States and internationally, and to administrators of legal education policy and reform, but also to scholars seeking a more in-depth understanding of the connections between legal education and socio-political change.

This volume deals with questions of political party funding and campaign financing, issues which arouse controversy in many parts of the world. How are the central actors in the political arena supposed to gather the funds necessary to operate effectively on behalf of their chosen political ends? And, how may they spend money in furtherance of their political objectives? The aim of this volume, the first in a new series of Columbia University/London University collaborative projects, is to explore these issues in the specific context of a number of national settings.The studies presented here show that financing questions cannot be addressed independent of the constitutional conventions of the country, the nature of the political parties in the country, and the means of access to publication and the media in any given nation. The national studies in this volume reveal a rich diversity in the approach to regulation in Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, Quebec, the United Kingdom and the United States. The topicality of the issues considered is reflected in the fact that since the book was first mooted there have been major decisions of the US Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Canada, as well as an investigation and report by the Electoral Commission in the United Kingdom, all of which have a direct bearing on the legal and policy issues discussed in this book.

The clear objective of European law in relation to redundancy-defined in the consolidated Collective Redundancies Directive (98/59) as 'dismissals effected by an employer for one or more reasons not related to the individual workers concerned'-is to promote industrial democracy. Thus, employees enjoy a consultative role in the decision making process, and a level of protection is provided to employees who are displaced. However, specific legal criteria vary when it comes to restructuring companies in different countries. This book provides an overview of the relevant legislation regarding redundancy schemes in each of the 27 EU Member States, as well as Russia and Switzerland. Following an introductory chapter describing the European directive regarding mass redundancies, 29 country reports written by one or more experienced employment lawyers from the respective country offer overviews of relevant national legislation and case law regarding timing, information and consultation, risks, and costs, as well as practical legal guidance.The individual reports cover how each jurisdiction deals with such practical matters as the following:A* freedom of management to organise and to reorganise businesses; A* enhancement of employee rights;A* voluntary redundancy and voluntary early retirement programmes; A* circumstances where an employer is proposing to effect a change of terms and conditions of employment; A* the 'ten percent rule' model (comparing the number of redundancies proposed to the total workforce) versus the 'aggregate' model (which focuses on the total number of redundancies to be declared);A* definition of 'establishment' for the purpose of applying the consultation threshold; A* exceptions (e. g., fixed term contracts, contracts which are task related and where the task has been completed, public administrative bodies, establishments governed by public law, and the crews of sea-going vessels);A* details of local law provisions concerning employee representatives-local Works Councils, Comites d'Entreprise, trade unions, or groups specifically elected for the purpose;A* what must be covered in the consultation agenda; A* obligation on the part of the employer to make all relevant information available-e.g., reasons, number of categories of workers to be made redundant, number and categories of workers normally employed, period over which redundancies are to be effected, selection criteria, and payment; andA* notification to the relevant 'competent public authority' of the impending redundancies.This book will be enormously helpful to all who deal professionally with employment law in one or more countries in Europe. Legal counsel as well as HR directors will find it of great value in numerous situations that arise constantly in the day-to-day conduct of business.

If one were to define a lawyer's practice as "comparative law", who would not smile at the naivety expressed by such a confusion of the academic and the "practical"? Yet such a definition comes close to reality for an increasing number of practitioners. As society becomes more global and multicultural, many lawyers find themselves researching and applying principles and rules from several legal traditions. In Europe especially, the gradual convergence of civil law and common law that has been under way for decades is now gaining depth and breadth from aspects of Islamic, Asian and African legal cultures, and we are all the better for it. So it is time to take stock of where the discipline of comparative law stands and where it is going, a task undertaken in the 16 essays in this book. The originals of these papers were delivered at the 2000 W.G. Hart Legal Workshop at the Institute of Legal Studies of the University of London. They may be read here as not merely comparative law studies, but penetrating theses about what comparative law is actually about, or what it is for. The general discussion tends to fall into three major areas: comparative public law, focusing on the growing scrutiny worldwide on constitutionalism, human rights, and administrative accountability; transmigration of legal ideas and institutions, emphasizing the need to look at similarities and differences from an "importation" perspective as well as from the once-exclusive "exportation" perspective; and the European dimension, in which the need for the study of economic and social background and the role of law in the political process has come to the fore.

Recent transatlantic relations have been plagued by a seemingly endless series of disputes over trade and other economic and political interests. Some of these disputes have been amongst the most prominent of the WTO era: the Bananas Case, the Beef Hormones Case and the furore over the Helms-Burton Act. This book analyses the sources of transatlantic disputes, and the means employed to prevent and settle such disputes both bilaterally and through the multilateral dispute settlement mechanism of the of the WTO, and identifies promising areas for reform.

Vigorous debate exists among constitutional scholars as to the appropriate 'modalities' of constitutional argument, and their relative weight. Many scholars, however, argue that one important modality of constitutional argument involves attention to underlying constitutional purposes or 'values'. In Australia, this kind of values-oriented approach has been advocated by leading constitutional scholars, and also finds support in the judgments of the High Court at various times, particularly during the Mason Court era. Much of the scholarly debate on constitutional values to date, however, focuses on whether the Court should in fact look to constitutional values in this way, not the kinds of values the Court should consider, given such an approach. This book responds to this gap in the existing scholarly literature, by inviting a range of leading Australian constitutional lawyers and scholars to address the relevance and scope of various substantive constitutional values, and how they might affect the Court's approach to constitutional interpretation in various contexts. It is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Australia's constitutional system.

"Europe" is one of the defining issues of our times. Politically, economically, legally, culturally, it is a source of division to some and inspiration for others. This book contains essays written by eminent authors to celebrate the Centenary of the British Academy, the country's leading academic institution for Social Sciences and the Humanities. Their central theme is "Britain's Contribution to the Europe of the Twenty-First Century" and it is approached in an inter-disciplinary way from the different angles of law, politics, economics and the humanities. Contributors: Guido Alpa; Stephen Bann FBA; Vernon Bogdanor CBE, FRSA, FBA; Keith Clark, BCL; Kenneth Dyson FBA, FRHS; David Edward CMG, FRSE; Sir John Elliott, FBA, AAAS; Laurent Fabius; The Rt. Hon. Frank Field MP; Sir Roy Goode QC, CBE, FBA; The Rt. Hon. The Lord Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE; Giorgio La Malfa; Noelle Lenoir; Nicholas Mann CBE; Basil Markesinis QC, DCL, FBA; Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve, DBE, FBA; The Rt. Hon. The Lord Woolf of Barnes.

This volume contains the national reports and the general report on the topic of corporate takeovers through the public markets, as presented at the XIVth Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law held in Athens, Greece, between 31 July and 6 August 1994. The main aim of the report is to study public market transactions, with particular emphasis on policy. It presents a compilation and examination of the key issues relating to corporate takeovers worldwide and provides information and policy analysis for the scholar as well as for the legislator and the legal practitioner. The national reports cover the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States of America, Venezuela and Yugoslavia.

Foundations of Private Law is a treatise on the Western law of property, contract, tort and unjust enrichment in both common law systems and civil law systems. The thesis of the book is that underlying these fields of law are common principles, and that these principles can be used to explain the history and development of these areas. These underlying common principles are matters of common sense, which were given their archetypal expression by older jurists who wrote in the Aristotelian tradition. These principles shaped the development of Western law but can resolve legal problems which these older writers did not confront.

One of the most widespread problems in post-Communist countries is the quality of the judiciary. The book argues that these problems are intimately linked to the legal culture of Communist law, that an understanding of post-Communist judges necessarily requires an understanding of their Communist predecessors. There seems to be a deep continuity in the methods of legal reasoning employed by lawyers in the region of East Central Europe, starting in the era of Stalinism of the 1950s up to the current post-Communist period, which continuity is manifested in the problems of 1990s and 2000s. Communist legal culture and its aftermath provide an interesting analysis of the development of legal culture in a long-lasting system which was intellectually almost completely separated from the outside world. The book targets the judicial ideology, the conception of law, and the judicial self-perceptions, which are phenomena most likely to be contained in the deepest level of legal culture, that most resistant to change.

What is the federal philosophy inspiring the structure of European law? The federal principle stands for constitutional arrangements that find 'unity in diversity'. The two most influential manifestations of the federal principle emerged under the names of 'dual' and 'cooperative' federalism in the constitutional history of the United States of America. Dual federalism is based on the idea that the federal government and the State governments are co-equals and each is legislating in a separate sphere. Cooperative federalism, on the other hand, stands for the thought that both governments legislate in the same sphere. They are hierarchically arranged and complement each other in solving a social problem. Can the European Union be understood in federal terms? The book's general part introduces three constitutional traditions of the federal idea. Following the American tradition, the European Union is defined as a Federation of States as it stands on the 'middle ground' between international and national law.
But what federal philosophy has the European Union followed? The special part of the book investigates the structure of European law. Three arguments are advanced to show the evolution of the European legal order from dual to cooperative federalism. The first looks at the decline of constitutional exclusivity on the part of the Member States and the European Union. For almost all objects of government, the Union and its States operate in a universe of shared powers. The second argument analyses the decline of legislative exclusivity. European and national legislation - increasingly - complement each other to solve a social problem. The third argument describes the 'constitutionalisation' of cooperative federalism in the form of the principle of subsidiarity and the idea of complementary competences. A final Chapter is dedicated to Europe's foreign affairs federalism. It analyses, whether the external sphere must be regarded as subject to different constitutional or federal principles. The book concludes that cooperative federalism will benefit both levels of government - the Union and the Member States - as the constitutional mechanism of uniform European standards complemented by diverse national standards best expresses the federal idea of 'unity in diversity'.

This book consists of contributions exploring from different perspectives the 'images' of the consumer in EU law. The images of the consumer form the foundation for various EU policies, more or less directly oriented towards the goal of consumer protection. The purpose of the volume is to establish what visions of the consumer there are in different contexts of EU law, whether they are consistent, and whether EU law's engagement with consumer-related considerations is sincere or merely instrumental to the achievement of other goals. The chapters discuss how consumers should be protected in EU contract, competition, free movement and trade mark law. They reflect on the limits of the consumer empowerment rationale as the basis for EU consumer policy. The chapters look also at the variety of concerns consumers might have, including the cost of goods and services, access to credit, ethical questions of consumption, the challenges of excessive choice and the possibility to influence the content of regulatory measures, and explore the significance of these issues for the EU's legislative and judicial process.

More and more, social security systems influence each other. Governments, policy makers and academics have become very interested in the way various social security systems approach particular problems, such as ageing of society and the policy to reintegrate recipients of social security benefits into the workforce. For this purpose a profound description and analysis of the legal aspects of the Dutch social security system should prove useful. This monograph aims to provide this information. Moreover, this book describes the Dutch system from an international perspective: it discusses the impact of ILO Conventions, Conventions of the Council of Europe and EU regulations and directives on the Dutch social security system. In this way it shows which impact international law has had on the Dutch system. This contributes to more insight of the meaning of international social security law on this particular system, and it also contributes to the general knowledge of the impact international law has on national social security law.

Recent revelations, by Edward Snowden and others, of the vast network of government spying enabled by modern technology have raised major concerns both in the European Union and the United States on how to protect privacy in the face of increasing governmental surveillance. This book brings together some of the leading experts in the fields of constitutional law, criminal law and human rights from the US and the EU to examine the protection of privacy in the digital era, as well as the challenges that counter-terrorism cooperation between governments pose to human rights. It examines the state of privacy protections on both sides of the Atlantic, the best mechanisms for preserving privacy, and whether the EU and the US should develop joint transnational mechanisms to protect privacy on a reciprocal basis. As technology enables governments to know more and more about their citizens, and about the citizens of other nations, this volume offers critical perspectives on how best to respond to one of the most challenging developments of the twenty-first century.

The pleading and proof of foreign law are often treated as matters of peripheral importance. But, in reality, how foreign law is established, and whether it must be established at all, are central issues in private international law. Whether litigants are free to ignore the foreign elements in a dispute goes to the heart of the conflicts process, and without effective means to establish foreign law the very purpose of that process is subverted. Such issues give rise to particular problems in English law. It is often unclear whether the rules for choice of law are mandatory, and whether the application of foreign law is therefore required. The cost and uncertainty of establishing foreign law may also affect how cases are argued and decided, and may discourage litigants from suing at all. This book, the first to examine the topic from the perspective of English law, offers a radical reappraisal of a long-neglected subject. Fentiman argues that the law is both more complex, and more defensible, than had previously been supposed. He provides a practical guide to the subject and in so doing presents the conflict of laws in a way which is both novel and illuminating.

In the event that damage is caused as a result of the Year 2000 problem, who will be responsible for compensating the victims of such damage? Should the developers, vendors or licensors of non-compliant software be held liable if their products do not continue to function correctly through the change in the millennium? Should those who provide "fixes" to the Bug which do not work properly be accountable for damage caused? Do end-users have a duty to ensure that their software is Year 2000 compliant? These questions, among others, will not be answered fully until the courts have had an opportunity to rule upon disputes which will no doubt arise. Other matters to be considered include the type of agreement that has been entered into between the parties, which rules will therefore apply and what defences, if any, may be available to the defendant. Insurance is also a big issue. Many insurance companies are stating that damage resulting from the Millennium Bug will not be covered by existing policies, and defences such as force majeure and act of God have been raised. What will happen when these issues come to litigation remains to be seen. This special issue of the "Comparative Law Yearbook of International Business" discusses the legal implications of the Millennium Bug in various countries. It describes the way in which agreements relating to software are viewed by different jurisdictions and the possible attribution of liability for damage caused by the Bug.

This yearbook reviews significant legal developments in international commerce and offers an important forum for legal practitioners to address and compare practical legal issues of direct interest to their areas of specialization. Each volume of the yearbook features a comprehensive range of articles written for and by leading practitioners and advisers working within the international business sector. The topics covered in Volume 17, the new volume for 1995, range from the ethical issues for lawyers involved in cross-border transactions to insider trading. Several of the chapters make reference to the growing European Union (EU), with one chapter focusing particularly on the free movement of goods throughout the EU's Member States. Competition within the EU is also dealt with, the provisions of Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty of Rome being of particular relevance due to the large amount of recent case law in this area. There is a large section dealing with company law matters, including the emergence and development of new types of corporation, privatization and the westernization of companies in countries such as China. The recovery of monies and the enforcement of judgments in this respect are always issues of high priority in business. The volume thus discusses these matters in a separate section on debt recovery. The remainder of the book is divided into parts dealing with finance and mergers and acquisitions, together with a general commercial law section. This yearbook has been prepared by specialist practitioners from all corners of the world for the use of international business lawyers and their clients.