Prescription is a major legal defence that bars civil actions on the claim after the expiry of a certain period of time. Despite its far-reaching practical effects on litigation and on society at large, and the fact that it is the subject matter of pervasive legal reforms in many countries, the law of prescription (limitation of actions) is rarely discussed, analysed and compared. To meet this challenge, this book canvases in-depth the law of 15 selected jurisdictions (covering Europe, South Africa and the US jurisdictions) and extensively analyses in comparative perspective the elements of prescription (accrual of the cause of action, prescription periods, rules of suspension, renewal, extension, etc), their interrelations, and the policy considerations (including economic analysis). Topics also covered include the notions of 'action', 'claim', and 'cause of action', subjective and objective prescription, statute interpretation and judicial discretion. The book concludes with how the present law can be improved and where suitable harmonised. While its main focus is the prescription of tort claims, the analysis, comparison and conclusions are highly relevant to most civil actions. Prescription in Tort Law is the result of a three-year research project lead by the European Group on Tort Law (EGTL) that brings together leading academics of the field. It is an invaluable resource for private lawyers. With contributions by Bjarte Askeland (Bergen Appeal Court Judge, Norway), Ewa Baginska (University of Gdansk, Poland), Jean-Sebastien Borghetti (University Paris II Pantheon-Assas, France), Giovanni Comande (Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy), Eugenia Dacoronia (University of Athens, Greece), Isabelle Durant (Universite catholique de Louvain, Belgium), Israel Gilead (Hebrew University, Israel), Michael D Green (Wake Forest University, United States), Ernst Karner (University of Vienna, Austria), Anne LM Keirse (Utrecht University, The Netherlands), Bernhard A Koch (University of Innsbruck, Austria), Frederic Krauskopf (University of Bern, Switzerland), Ulrich Magnus (University of Hamburg, Germany), Miquel Martin-Casals (University of Girona, Spain), Johann Neethling (University of the Free State, South Africa), Elena Occhipinti (University of Pisa, Italy), Ken Oliphant (University of Bristol, United Kingdom), Albert Ruda-Gonzalez (University of Girona, Spain), Stefan Rutten (University of Antwerp), Lubos Tichy (Charles University, Czech Republic) and Benedict Winiger (University of Geneva, Switzerland).

Preface International conferences are not organized overnight-especially not when high ranking personalities from politics, business and academia should be offered an adequate platform for addressing and discussing highly relevant contemporary issues. The conference on "The Role of Law and Ethics in the Globalized Economy," which took place on May 22 and 23, 2008 in the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Munich, was no exception. When the first preparations started at the end of 2006, neither the subprime crises nor the general crises of the global financial system, whose shock waves have rocked the financial businesses in subsequent months, were known; nor were they predictable or even imaginable. Based on our monitoring of the globalization process and its apparent impact-not only on the economic and technological environment, but also on the social en- ronment-it was appropriate for the conference to begin by serving as a platform for analysing the status quo of the process of globalization, as relevant to politics, business and academia, and for exploring how the interest groups in those domains cope with the challenges of globalization. In the end, however, the purpose of the conference was to produce proposals for conditions for "upwards" global compe- tion, meaning that minimum conditions should be worked out to enable people to live and labour humanely. Such conditions would be those which should help avoid otherwise inevitable frictions in society, both nationally and internationally.

Taxes are sometimes so fundamental to domestic systems that they are almost impossible to change, as when the tax system is part of a nation's majority religion or is linked to another value deeply rooted in local communities, such as housing or farming. There is a danger in the WTO, a Geneva-based entity, making decisions for people living in distant locations with regard to tax issues related to their local needs and wants. The Saudi Arabian tax system exemplifies the tension between religion, tax and trade, because tax has a role in the country's religion and is an essential part of its laws.

Therefore, there is a need for maintaining a delicate balance between local needs and international commitments with respect to taxation. This book aims to show directions in which legal order can be preserved as much as possible from within each country, and yet not imposed upon them, and which will help build a peaceful bridge between local and international factors that are important to shaping the global order.

In the global era, controversies abound over temporary labour migration; however, it has not previously been subjected to a sustained socio-legal analysis on a comparative basis, critiquing the underpinning concepts conventionally accepted as fundamental in this area. This collection of essays aims to fill that void. Complex regulatory challenges arise from temporary labour migration. This collection examines these challenges and the extent to which temporary labour migration programmes can be ethical, equitable and efficacious and so deliver decent work for workers. Whilst the tendency for migration law to divide labour law's worker-protective mission has been observed before, the authors of the chapters comprising this collection seek not only to interrogate why and how this is so, but to go further in examining the implications and effects of a wide range of regulatory mechanisms on temporary labour migration.

The legal profession has undergone significant changes in the past few years. These have affected working structures and context within the profession, in turn affecting the wellbeing of individual practitioners. This book is the first to consider how these operate in practice and how they impact on the wellbeing of lawyers. This is significant because legal systems cannot operate without properly functioning lawyers. Changes considered include rapidly evolving technologies such as the internet, artificial intelligence and increasing digitisation, and innovations in legal practice. Such innovations include changes in the structures of law firms, changing requirements about whether lawyers must practice separately from other professions and changing employment practices in law firms.The Impact of Technology and Innovation on the Well-Being of the Legal Profession considers the impact of all of these developments on the legal profession. It begins with students and how their responses to questions about their attitudes to learning may provide clues as to why they and the professionals they become might be more vulnerable to depression and anxiety than the wider population. The analysis then extends to how both satisfaction and stress levels can be simultaneously high and the implications of this, considering the experiences of lawyers in private and public practice, as well as academics, and their responses to the interactions between all of these changes. Leading researchers assess the situation in Australia and the United Kingdom in these various domains, using empirical research as the foundation of the arguments put forth.Anyone who is interested in the future of the legal profession and the challenges currently faced as a consequence of the massive structural and environmental changes experienced should read this book.

Compensation funds are used in vastly different ways across jurisdictions and legal traditions. They are an alternative to traditional tort, insurance and social security structures, and change or eliminate ordinary liability rules for certain classes of victims. Compensation funds have been established to solve liability problems in the domains of traffic accidents, financial deposits, crime victim redress, industrial and environmental damage, natural disasters and healthcare damage. They are popular with lawmakers, but their undefined nature (and sometimes incoherent status) raises important legal questions that have not yet been fully answered.The way that compensation funds have developed in different jurisdictions has not always been consistent with the rest of the legal system within that jurisdiction. The contributions in this book consider the way in which these funds have been used in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom. Focusing on their functions, purpose, funding and quantum of compensation, new conclusions are drawn on the objectives of compensation funds and how they differ from insurance and social security.Compensation Funds in Comparative Perspective is useful for all comparative law, liability law and insurance law scholars and practitioners seeking to understand contemporary issues in the operation of compensation funds and introduces novel ideas for future development.

This book is a comparative study of the tax systems of Germany and Japan. It is a considerably expanded version of Iizuka's previous monograph, Veritable Bookkeeping Records, which was important enough a contribution to comparative tax studies that it was serialized and published in twenty-six parts over three years ('79-'82) in the Japan Society of Accounting's journal, "Accounting."

The present volume includes a good deal of new, revised and updated material not included in the first monograph. Here Iizuka boldly puts forward counterarguments to the opinions of several hundred Japanese, European and North American scholars. One of his chief messages is that Japan needs to look to Germany, to the United States and to other EC nations for guidance in developing fairer accounting principles.

Constitutional litigation in general attracts two distinct types of conflict: disputes of a highly politicized or culturally controversial nature and requests from citizens claiming a violation of a fundamental constitutional right. The side-by-side comparison between the U.S. Supreme Court and the German Federal Constitutional Court provides a novel socio-legal approach in studying constitutional litigation, focusing on conditions of mobilisation, decision-making and implementation. This updated and revised second edition includes a number of new contributions on the political status of the courts in their democratic political cultures.

This volume analyses the legal grounds, premises and extent of pecuniary compensation for violations of human rights in national legal systems. The scope of comparison includes liability regimes in general and in detail, the correlation between pecuniary remedies available under international law and under domestic law, and special (alternative) compensation systems. All sources of human rights violations are embraced, including historical injustices and systematical and gross violations. The book is a collection of nineteen contributions written by public international law, international human rights and private law experts, covering fifteen European jurisdictions (including Central and Eastern Europe), the United States, Israel and EU law. The contributions, initially prepared for the 19th International Congress of Comparative law in Vienna (2014), present the latest developments in legislation, scholarship and case-law concerning domestic causes of action in cases of human rights abuses. The book concludes with a comparative report which assesses the developments in tort law and public liability law, the role of the constitutionalisation of the right to damages as well as the court practice related to the process of enforcement of human rights through monetary remedies. This country-by-country comparison allows to consider whether the value of protection of human rights as expressed in international treaties, ius cogens and in national constitutional laws justifies the conclusion that the interests at stake should enjoy protection under the existing civil liability rules, or that a new cause of action, or even a whole new set of rules, should be created in national systems.

Whereas many modern works on comparative law focus on various aspects of legal doctrine the aim of this book is of a more theoretical kind - to reflect on comparative law as a scholarly discipline, in particular at its epistemology and methodology. Thus, among its contents the reader will find: a lively discussion of the kind of 'knowledge' that is, or could be, derived from comparative law; an analysis of 'legal families' which asks whether we need to distinguish different 'legal families' according to areas of law; essays which ask what is the appropriate level for research to be conducted - the technical 'surface level', a 'deep level' of ideology and legal practice, or an 'intermediate level' of other elements of legal culture, such as the socio-economic and historical background of law. One part of the book is devoted to questioning the identification and demarcation of a 'legal system' (and the clash between 'legal monism' and 'legal pluralism') and the definition of the European legal orders, sub-State legal orders, and what is left of traditional sovereign State legal systems; while a final part explores the desirability and possibility of developing a basic common legal language, with common legal principles and legal concepts and/or a legal meta-language, which would be developed and used within emerging European legal doctrine. All the papers in this collection share the common goal of seeking answers to fundamental, scientific problems of comparative research that are too often neglected in comparative scholarship.

On 13 June 2002 the Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant and Surrender Procedures between Member States of the European Union (EAW) was adopted by the Council of the European Union. The Framework Decision must be implemented by all current and future members of the European Union in their respective legal systems. This handbook offers an introduction to the EAW, its origin and its implications. It sets out the history of extradition as a legal system and compares the EAW with the old system. It includes the full text of the EAW with commentaries per paragraph. Attention is paid to procedural rules as well as to special issues, such as the principles of reciprocity and mutual trust, ne bis in idem, verdicts in absentia and the double criminality rule. The relation of EAW with other relevant legal instruments, including those concerning human rights and procedural safeguards, is also covered.

The book focusses on the enforcement of consumer law in order to identify commonalities and best practices across nations. It is composed of twenty-eight contributions from national rapporteurs to the IACL Congress in Montevideo in 2016 and the introductory comparative general report. The national contributors are drawn from across the globe, with representation from Africa (1), Asia (5), Europe (15), Oceania (2) and the Americas (5). The general report proposes a general introduction to the question of enforcement and effectiveness of consumer law. It then proceeds to identify the variety of ways in which national legislatures approach this question and the diversity of mechanisms put in place to address it. The general report uses examples drawn from the reports to illustrate common approaches and to identify more original or distinct unique approaches, taking into account the reported strengths and weaknesses of each. The general report consistently points readers to particular national reports on specific issues, inviting readers to consult these individual contributions for more details. The national contributions deal with the following areas: the national legal framework for consumer protection, the general design of the enforcement mechanism, the number and characteristics of consumer complaints and disputes, the use of courts and specialized agencies for the enforcement of consumer law, the role of consumer organizations and of private regulation in the enforcement of consumer law, the place of collective redress mechanism and of alternative dispute resolution modes, the sanctions for breaches of consumer law and the nature of external relations or cooperation with other countries or international organizations. These enriching national and international perspectives offer a comprehensive overview of the current state of consumer law around the globe.

This important new work examines fundamental, but hitherto neglected, issues of national criminal law. Where and to whom does that law apply? When can domestic law apply to conduct that takes place abroad? The author examines the territorial and extraterritorial application of the criminal law, identifying defects, lacunae, and historical accidents, and suggests possible reforms.

Prof. Dr. H. C. Klaus Vogel turned 70 in December 2000. For his students, colleagues and friends all around the world he has been not only a teacher and academic, but also a researcher and mentor, and this occasion provided the opportunity to honour him with a Festschrift. This celebratory volume, with contributions in German and in English, is published under the title Staaten und Steuern (States and Taxes) by C.F. Muller Verlag in Heidelberg. With the permission of the publisher, the present volume contains the English language contributions as a separate publication. The following articles are included.

The chapters in this volume are from two Leiden conferences. There, distinguished scholars and practitioners from Russia and the Far Abroad measured the winds of change in the field of private law in post-Soviet Russia: enormous differences from the Soviet period, crucial in supporting post-Soviet changes toward freedom of choice in the marketplaces of goods, services, ideas and political institutions. This volume will enable the reader to further chart the progress made in Russia (and the region) in the revitalization of private and civil law-and its impact upon practice and comparative legal studies-and to appreciate the role which the distinction between the public and private sectors is seen as playing in the process.

From Russia and Hungary to the United States and Canada, including Britain, France, and Germany, courts are increasingly recognized as political institutions that are important players in political systems. In addition, transnational courts such as the European Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights are extending their reach and affecting the politics of member states. The book contains essays written by scholars of law and political science exploring in interdisciplinary fashion the relationship between law and politics in cross-national perspective, focusing principally on contemporary Europe.

Alejandro Botta locates the Aramaic legal formulary in context of the Egyptian legal tradition and looks at the influence of foreign legal practices on other formulae which do not have their roots in Egypt.This is a study of the interrelationships between the formulary traditions of the legal documents of the Jewish colony of Elephantine and the legal formulary traditions of their Egyptian counterparts.The legal documents of Elephantine have been approached in three different ways thus far: first, comparing them to the later Aramaic legal tradition; second, as part of a self-contained system, and more recently from the point of view of the Assyriological legal tradition. However, there is still a fourth possible approach, which has long been neglected by scholars in this field, and that is to study the Elephantine legal documents from an Egyptological perspective. In seeking the Egyptian parallels and antecedents to the Aramaic formulary, Botta hopes to balance the current scholarly perspective, based mostly upon Aramaic and Assyriological comparative studies.It was formerly the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement.

Preface by T. Morrison, Director-General of the European Diagnostic Manufacturers Association. Contributors: W. Kewenig; G. Forlani, J. Marriage, G. Ulloa This book is based upon a report prepared at the request of the European Commission. Its purpose is to set out the existing laws regulating the development, production, distribution and use of in vitro diagnostic medical devices (IVDMD) in the U.K., Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Each national section has the same structure and covers the same ground in order to enable comparisons. IVDM Devices includes not only reagents, but also technical instruments, or combination of both, for human use. The book is directed towards industry and the regulation is covered with a high degree of specificity. This reference book, completely written in English, is the only comprehensive exposition of the laws of the five countries regarding IVDM Devices available. It is also the most convenient means of comparing those laws. As such, it will be a useful guide to all IVDM Devices manufacturers interested in the European market.

Whilst paying lip service to the importance of public access to court proceedings and its corollary of unfettered media reporting,a trawl through common law jurisdictions reveals that judges and legislators have been responsible for substantial inroads into the ideal of open justice. Outside of the US, judges and legislators have long subordinated media freedom to report and comment upon matters relating to the administration of justice in order to safeguard the fairness of individual proceedings, public confidence in the administration of justice more generally or even individual privacy concerns. The subject matter of this book is a comparative treatment of constitutional protection for open justice. Focusing on developments in the legal systems of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia, the monograph draws upon the constitutionalization of expression interests across the common law world to engage in a much needed re-assessment of the basis and extent of permissible restraints on speech.

Multi-party litigation is a world-wide legal process, and the class action device is one of its best-known manifestations. As a means of providing access to justice and achieving judicial economies, the class action is gaining increasing endorsement - particularly given the prevalence of mass consumerism of goods and services, and the extent to which the activities and decisions of corporations and government bodies can affect large numbers of people. The primary purpose of this book is to compare and contrast the class action models that apply under the federal regimes of Australia and the United States and the provincial regimes of Ontario and British Columbia in Canada. While the United States model is the most longstanding, there have now been sufficient judicial determinations under each of the studied jurisdictions to provide a constructive basis for comparison. In the context of the drafting and application of a workable class action framework, it is apparent that similar problems have been confronted across these jurisdictions, which in turn promotes a search for assistance in the experience and legal analysis of others. The book is presented in three Parts. The first Part deals with the class action concept and its alternatives, and also discusses and critiques the stance of England where the introduction of the opt-out class action model has been opposed. The second Part focuses upon the various criteria and factors governing commencement of a class action (encompassing matters such as commonality, superiority, suitability, and the class representative). Part 3 examines matters pertaining to conduct of the action itself (such as becoming a class member, notice requirements, settlement, judgments, and costs and fees). The book is written to have practical utility for a wide range of legal practitioners and professionals, such as: academics and students of comparative civil procedure and multi-party litigation; litigation lawyers who may use the reference materials cited to the benefit of their own class action clients; and those charged with law reform who look to adopt the most workable (and avoid the unworkable) features in class action models elsewhere.

The legal consequence of the superior orders defense has long been debated as one of the major problems in international criminal law. Several controversial issues such as the immunity of the state, the absolute character of military discipline, and immunity on the grounds of mistake of law and/or coercion have been complexly interwoven in the debates. The Execution of Illegal Orders and International Criminal Responsibility provides a comprehensive portrait of the relevant debates at the international level up to the present, analyzes the conflicting views, and shows the significance of the development of international rules for the superior orders defense as well as the implication of the fact that issues concerning some detailed or related rules have been left unresolved. This study presents to present a new standpoint not only on dealing with the problem of the superior orders defense but also on reconsidering the international stipulation of rulemaking with regard to criminal matters.

For centuries, since the Roman Empire’s adoption of Christianity, the continent of Europe has been perceived as something of a Christian fortress. Today, the increase in the number of Muslims living in Europe and the prominence of Islamic belief pose questions not only for Europe’s religious traditions but also for its constitutional make up. This book examines these challenges within the legal and political framework of Europe. The volume’s contributors range from academics at leading universities to former judges and politicians. Its twenty chapters focus on constitutional challenges, human rights with a focus on religious freedom, and securitisation and Islamophobia, while adopting supranational and comparative approaches. This book will appeal not merely to law students in the United Kingdom and the European Union, but to anyone involved in diplomacy and international relations, including political scientists, lobbyists, and members of NGOs. It explores these contested relationships to open up new spaces in how we think about religious freedom and co-existence in Europe and the crucial role that Islam has had, and continues to have, in its development.

The contributions brought together in this book derive from joint seminars, held by scholars between colleagues from the University of Oxford and the University of Paris II. Their starting point is the original divergence between the two jurisdictions, with the initial rejection of the public-private divide in English Law, but on the other hand its total acceptance as natural in French Law. Then, they go on to demonstrate that the two systems have converged, the British one towards a certain degree of acceptance of the division, the French one towards a growing questioning of it. However this is not the only part of the story, since both visions are now commonly coloured and affected by European Law and by globalisation, which introduces new tensions into our legal understanding of what is "public" and what is "private".

The international carriage of goods by sea has been regulated by international conventions. These includethe "International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law relating to Bills of Lading" ("Hague Rules"); the "Protocol to Amend the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law Relating to Bills of Lading" ("Visby Rules"); and the "UN Convention on the Carriage of Goods by Sea." They were adopted in 1924, 1968 and 1978 respectively and the transport industry's commercial needs have since substantially changed. Furthermore the advent of subsequent regimes has resulted in the uniformity in the carriage of goods by sea once provided by the Hague Rules being lost. In order to update and modernize existing regimes the "UN Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea" ("Rotterdam Rules") was adopted on December 11, 2008 by the UN General Assembly and opened for signature on September 23, 2009. Since then drafters of the Rotterdam Rules, academics and practitioners have been publicizing, discussing, and evaluating the Rules. This book is an effort to further explore those same goals.
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