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

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 book gathers international and national reports from across the globe on key questions in the field of antitrust and intellectual property.The first part discusses the allocation of liability for infringement of antitrust laws between corporations and individuals. The book explores the criminal or administrative sanctions available against corporations, companies or group of companies, and individuals, such as employees or directors. A detailed international report explores the major trends and challenges in this field and provides an excellent comparative study of this complex and challenging subject. The second part examines whether intellectual property rights are sufficiently protected to ensure a fair return on investments made by manufacturers and distributors. This question comes at a time where distribution is facing deep and radical changes with the Internet. To what extent this is an opportunity or a threat to the sustainability of distribution systems of differentiated and IP protected goods is the question. This book brings together the current legal responses across a number of European countries and elsewhere in the world, all summarised and elaborated in an international report. The book also includes the resolutions passed by the General Assembly of the International League of Competition Law (LIDC) following a debate on each of these topics, which include proposed solutions and recommendations. The LIDC is a long-standing international association that focuses on the interface between competition law and intellectual property law, including unfair competition issues.

This volume takes a look at the status quo of whistleblowing in several jurisdictions from around the world. Covering a topic that draws the attention of a broad public and is gaining importance amongst legislators, practitioners and scholars all over the globe, the book examines the various aspects of whistleblowing. It looks at what kind of legal protection of whistleblowers is in force, who is protected, what kind of behaviour is protected, and what kind of behaviour whistleblowers are protected against. This is achieved by a combination of a general comparative report with country-specific reports that give information on whistleblowing in various jurisdictions. These countries include, amongst others, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and the USA. A synopsis comprises information on whistleblowing in 23 countries in one tabula. The chapters of this book were originally prepared for the XIXth International Congress of Comparative Law (20th and 21 July 2014) of International Academy of Comparative Law in Vienna.

Building the UK's New Supreme Court is a collection of essays by academics and legal practitioners on questions relating to the institutional and procedural design of the UK's proposed new top-level court. They consider the interrelationships between the work of the Law Lords and courts in Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Court of Appeal, the European Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights. Other essays examine the scope for lesson-learning from the experiences of top courts outside the UK - the US Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Canada, and the German and Spanish constitutional courts.

Law is generally understood to be a mirror of society that functions to maintain social order. Focusing on this general understanding, this book conducts a survey of Western legal and social theories about law and its relationship within society. It then engages in a theoretical and empirical critique of this common understanding, covering such subjects as the impact of legal transplantation and globalization of law, and it proposes an alternative way to understand the relationship between law and society.

This comprehensive book offers a thoughtful survey of theories, issues and cases in order to reassess the present vision of contract law. Comparative refers both to the specific kind of methodologies implied and to the polyphonic perspectives collected on the main topics, with the aim of superseding the conventional forms of representation. In this perspective, the work engages a critical search for the fault lines, which crosses traditions of thought and globalized landscapes. Notwithstanding contract's enduring presence and the technicalities devoted to managing clauses and interpretation, the inquiry on the proper nature of contract and its status and collocation within private legal taxonomies continues to be a controversial exercise. Moving from a vast array of dissimilar inclinations, which have historically produced heterogeneous maps of law, this book is built around the genealogies of contractual theoretical thinking; the contentious relationship between private governance and normative regulations; the competing styles used to stage contract law; the concurring opinions expressed within the domain of other disciplines, such as literature and political theory; the tensions between global context and local frames; and the movable thresholds between canonical expressions and heterodox constructions. For its careful analysis and the wide range of references employed, Comparative Contract Law will be a tremendous resource for academics, legal scholars and interdisciplinary experts as well as judges and law practitioners. Contributors include: G. Bellantuono, B.H. Bix, D. Carpi, C.L. Cordasco, C. Costantini, S. Fiorato, J. Gordley, M. Granieri, A. Hutchison, M.R. Marella, G. Marini, P.G. Monateri, F. Monceri, P. Moreno Cruz, H. Muir Watt, F. Parisi, P. Pardolesi, G. Samuel

This volume contains sections on company law, dispute resolution, employment law, insolvency law, intellectual property law, taxation and finance and other general commercial issues. There are a number of chapters which tackle cross-border issues, such as taxation, jurisdiction and arbitration, while others concentrate on specific geographical areas, such as the Asia-Pacific region. Some authors explore problems in the workplace, including the reduction of the workforce and incidents of racial discrimination within it, issues of which all employers need to be aware. Also examined are those subjects which are ever-present in the life of a business, among them bankruptcy and insolvency, procurement, intellectual property, investment, contracts and other matters of company law. Other chapters comprise an in-depth look at the Vienna Convention on the "International Sale of Goods", a specialized discussion of patent second medical use claims, an explanation of how criminal sanctions are being applied to crimes against the environment, a report of the devaluation and dollarization of an economy and an interesting insight into the effects of a nation's culture and traditions upon its legal system. This volume of the yearbook contains chapters on a wide variety of issues which arise regularly in the commercial world, but it also contains discussions on more specialized topics. These will not only be of use to the practitioners and business people involved in those areas, but should be useful reading for those who are not and provide an introduction to subjects which they may find useful in the future.

This book focuses on the restructuring of distressed businesses, emphasizing the need for new financing during the restructuring process as well as during relaunch, and examines the role of law in encouraging creditor confidence and incentivizing lending. It describes two broad approaches to encouraging new finance during restructuring: a prescriptive one that seeks to attract credit using expressly defined statutory incentives, and a market-based one that relies on the business judgment of lenders against the backdrop of transaction avoidance rules. Securing new financing for a distressed business is a critical part of successful restructuring. Without such financing, the business may be unable to meet interim liquidity constraints, or to implement its restructuring plans. This book addresses related questions concerning the place of new financing as an essential component of restructuring. In general terms, the book explores how statutory interventions and the courts can provide support with contentious issues that arise from the provision of new financing, whether through new financing agreements or through distressed debt investors, who are increasingly gaining prominence as sources of new financing for distressed businesses. It argues that courts play a key part in preventing or correcting the imbalances that can arise from the participation of distressed debt investors. In this context, it critically examines the distressed debt market in emerging markets like Nigeria and the opportunity presented by non-performing loans, arguing that the regulatory pattern of market entry may dis-incentivize distress debt investing in a market that is in dire need of financing. The book offers a fresh and comparative perspective on restructuring new financing for distressed businesses by comparing various approaches (primarily from the US, UK and Germany) and drawing lessons for frontier markets, with particular reference to Nigeria. It fills an important gap in international comparative scholarship and discusses a living problem with both empirical and policy aspects.

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.

For centuries, inconsistencies were seen as a hindrance to good reasoning, and their role in the sciences was ignored. However, logicians as well as philosophers and historians have shown a growing interest in the matter. Central to this change were the advent of paraconsistent logics, the shift in attention from finished theories to construction processes, and the recognition that most scientific theories were at some point either internally inconsistent or incompatible with other accepted findings. The interest gave rise to important questions. How is "logical anarchy" avoided? Is it ever rational to accept an inconsistent theory? In what sense, if any, can inconsistent theories be considered as true? This collection of papers examines such questions. It contains case studies as well as philosophical analyses, and presents an excellent overview of the different approaches in the domain.

Basic freedoms cannot be abandoned in times of conflict, or can they? Are basic freedoms routinely forsaken during times when there are national security concerns? These questions present different conundrums for the legal profession, which generally values basic freedoms but is also part of the architecture of emergency legal frameworks. Unleashing the Force of Law uses multi-jurisdiction empirical data and draws on cause lawyering, political lawyering and Bourdieusian juridical field literature to analyze the invocation of legal norms aimed at the protection of basic freedoms in times of national security tensions. It asks three main questions about the protection of basic freedoms. First, when do lawyers mobilize for the protection of basic freedoms? Second, in what kind of mobilization do they engage? Third, how do the strategies they adopt relate to the outcomes they achieve? Covering the last five decades, the book focusses on the 1980s and the Noughties through an analysis of legal work for two groups of independence seekers in the 1980s, namely, Republican (mostly Catholic) separatists in Northern Ireland and Puerto Rican separatists in the US, and on post-9/11 issues concerning basic freedoms in both countries

This book examines how law functions in a multitude of facets and dimensions. The contributions shed light on the study of comparative law in legal scholarship, the relevance of comparative law in legal practice, and the importance of comparative law in legal education. The book will particularly appeal to those engaged in the teaching and scholarship of comparative law, and those seeking to uncover the various significant dimensions of the workings of law. The book is organised in three parts. Part I addresses scholarship, with contributors examining comparative legal issues as critique and from a theoretical framework. Part II outlines practice, with contributors discussing the function of comparative law in such comparatively diverse areas as international arbitration, environment, and the rule of law. Part III appraises comparative law in education.

Comparative constitutional law is a field of increasing importance around the world, but much of the literature is focused on Europe, North America, and English-speaking jurisdictions. The importance of Asia for the broader field is demonstrated here in original contributions that look thematically at issues from a general perspective, with special attention on how they have been treated in East Asian jurisdictions.The authors - leading comparativists from around the world - illuminate material from Asian jurisdictions on matters such as freedom of religion, constitutional courts, property rights, emergency regimes and the drafting process of constitutions. Together they present a picture of a region that is grappling with complex constitutional issues and is engaged with developments in the rest of the world, while at the same time pursuing distinctive local solutions that deserve close attention. This unique scholarly study will prove an important research tool for Asian scholars, constitutional lawyers within Asia and comparative constitutional scholars around the world. Contributors: T. Allen, J. Blount, J.A. Cheibub, S. Choudhry, R. Chowdhry, M. Clark, R. Dixon, T. Ginsburg, R. Hirschl, M. Khosla, F. Limongi, K. O'Regan, V.V. Ramraj, C. Saunders, A. Stone, M. Tushnet

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions are an imperative part of the accelerated economic globalization of our time. Cross-border transaction volume now accounts for almost one-third of global M&A activity and this number will only increase as business world-wide continues to expand. The complex legal issues to be handled in such transactions encompass the co-ordination of different concepts of corporate governance and capital market regulations in the laws involved, as mirrored by the intense debate on M&A law making within the European Union, and for example, Germany. Lawyers engaged in the M&A practice will inevitably be confronted with cross-border transactions and will have to appropriately counsel their clients in the variable aspects of the law. This book, based on an international conference held by the Law Centre for European and International Cooperation (RIZ) in co-operation with the Centre of Commercial Law Studies, the Asian Institute of International Financial Law, and the SMU Institute of International Banking and Finance, provides a comprehensive exploration of the legal implications of a cross-border merger or acquisition. Applying a comparative approach, the compilation of articles by professors, practitioners and bankers provides thorough information on relevant topics. In addition to this, case studies analyzing the Daimler/Chrysler Merger and the British Petroleum/Amoco Merger have been included to illustrate the impact that different structures can have on the success of a business combination.

This year's volume of the "Comparative Law Yearbook of International Business deals with various aspects of the arbitration process. Some of the areas covered include the appointment of arbitrators, the points to be borne in mind by arbitrators during the conduct of arbitral proceedings, the evidentiary procedures involved in arbitration, and the advantages and disadvantages of arbitration when pitted against conventional litigation. Crucial to any successful arbitration is good preparation, in particular the setting down in an arbitral agreement of the intentions of the parties with regard to any future disputes that may arise between them. Ideally, the parties should agree, "inter alia, upon the type of arbitration, the choice of law, the "situs, and the number and appointment of arbitrators. The appointment of the arbitrators is a very important consideration in the conduct of an arbitration procedure. First, one must decide whether a sole arbitrator or a panel of three or more arbitrators is preferable in the specific circumstances, taking into account such criteria as cost, time, complexity of the issue, and the experience of the arbitrators. These points also, of course, have a bearing upon whether one chooses to arbitrate in the first place or whether litigation would be a more suitable route. Various factors in making these decisions are discussed in detail by the authors in this volume, and much valuable guidance is given to those involved in the arbitration process.

This new book in the Constitutionalism in Asia series considers the idea of origins, and of change and continuity in terms of 'constitution-making', which is an on-going process in the Northeast Asian states. The book examines the drafting, nature, core values, and roles of the first modern constitutions during the founding of the 8 modern states/territories in Northeast Asia: China (1949), Taiwan (1947), Hong Kong SAR (1997), Macau SAR (1999), Japan (1889), North Korea (1948 and 1972), South Korea (1948), and Mongolia (1924). The collection provides: - an exploratory description of the process and substantive inputs in the making of the first constitutions of these nations/territories; - analysis of the internal and external (including intra-regional) forces surrounding the making of these constitutions; and - theoretical construction of models to conceptualise the nature and role of the first constitutions (including constituent documents) in the founding of the modern nation-states/territories and their subsequent impact on state-building in the region.

Liability law is clearly expanding through an increasing number of strict liabilities, increasing claim-consciousness and higher amounts awarded. This work puts forward a number of views on how modern tort law copes and should cope with these changes. It provides a brief overview of a broad range of legal systems and describes the tools used to prevent the burden of liability law from becoming too heavy, such as causation, duty of care, caps and ceilings and ad hoc moderation.

This book examines the attainment of complete free movement of civil judgments across EU member states from the perspective of its conformity with the fundamental right to a fair trial. In the integrated legal order of the European Union, it is essential that litigants can rely on a judgment no matter where in the EU it was delivered. Effective mechanisms for cross-border recognition and the enforcement of judgments provide both debtors and creditors with the security that their rights, including their right to a fair trial, will be protected. In recent years the attainment of complete free movement of civil judgments, through simplification or abolition of these mechanisms, has become a priority for the European legislator. The text uniquely combines a thorough discussion of EU legislation with an in-depth and critical examination of its interplay with fundamental rights. It contains an over-view and comparison of both ECtHR and CJEU case law on the right to a fair trial, and provides a great number of specific recommendations for current and future legislation. With its critical discussion of EU Regulations from both a practical and a theoretical standpoint, this book is particularly relevant to legislators and policymakers working in this field. Because of the extensive overview of the functioning of the EU's mechanisms and of relevant case law it provides, the book is also highly relevant to academics and practitioners. Monique Hazelhorst is Judicial Assistant at the Supreme Court of the Netherlands. She studied Law and Legal Research at Utrecht University and holds a Ph.D. in Law from the Erasmus School of Law at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

This is the definitive book on the legal and fiscal framework for civil society organizations (CSOs) in China from earliest times to the present day. Civil Society in China traces the ways in which laws and regulations have shaped civil society over the 5,000 years of China's history and looks at ways in which social and economic history have affected the legal changes that have occurred over the millennia.
This book provides an historical and current analysis of the legal framework for civil society and citizen participation in China, focusing not merely on legal analysis, but also on the ways in which the legal framework influenced and was influenced in turn by social and economic developments. The principal emphasis is on ways in which the Chinese people - as opposed to high-ranking officials or cadres -- have been able to play a part in the social and economic development of China through the associations in which they participate.
Civil Society in China sums up this rather complex journey through Chinese legal, social, and political history by assessing the ways in which social, economic, and legal system reforms in today's China are bound to have an impact on civil society. The changes that have occurred in China's civil society since the late 1980's and, most especially, since the late 1990's, are nothing short of remarkable. This volume is an essential guide for lawyers and scholars seeking an in depth understanding of social life in China written by one of its leading experts.

This book presents a comparative study on access to public information in the context of the main legal orders worldwide(inter alia China,France,Germany,Japan,Russia,Sweden,United States).The international team of authors analyzes the Transparency- and Freedom-to-Information legislation with regard to the scope of the right to access, limitations of this right inherent in the respective national laws, the procedure, the relationship with domestic legislation on administrative procedure, as well as judicial protection. It particularly focuses on the Brazilian law establishing the right of access to information, which is interpreted as a benchmark for regulations in other Latin-American states.

This book presents a creative synthesis of two ostensibly disparate fields of law - arbitration and human rights. More specifically, it focuses on various legislative approaches to excluding the annulment of arbitral awards (setting-aside proceedings) at the seat of arbitration and evaluates the compatibility of such approaches with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), in particular the right to a fair trial under Article 6(1). The book first assesses the applicability and impact of the ECHR, in particular Article 6(1), on international commercial arbitration. It then analyses a number of legislative approaches to excluding setting-aside proceedings, focusing on two synergetic phenomena - exclusion agreements and the total lack of setting-aside proceedings in national arbitration law. Lastly, the book investigates to what extent the lack of setting-aside proceedings in national arbitration law may lead to a violation of arbitrating parties' right to a fair trial under Article 6(1), and puts forward certain de lege ferenda recommendations on how to best approach the regulation of setting-aside proceedings in national arbitration law from the standpoint of compliance with the ECHR.

Examining the successful movements to abolish capital punishment in the UK, France, and Germany, this book examines the similarities in the social structure and political strategies of abolition movements in all three countries. An in-depth comparative analysis with other countries assesses chances of success of abolition elsewhere.

New rules on distance contracts provided for the Consumer Rights Directive of 25 October 2011 do not apply to package holidays or contracts falling within the scope of the Timeshare Directive. Moreover, contracts for passenger transport services and contracts for the provision of accommodation, car rental, catering or leisure services if the contract provides for a specific date or period of performance are not covered by some of these rules. Yet measures aimed at protecting the consumer when a contract is concluded via the phone, the Internet, by mail or other means of distance communication play a role in tourism. This book helps readers to navigate through uncertainties in travel contracts regarding information requirements, the right of withdrawal or providing alternative services. Findings reveal that consumer acquis is inadequately adapted to the features of the tourism industry when an optional instrument based on the Draft Common Frame of Reference might be used in the future.