This book is unique in presenting an interdisciplinary conversation between jurists and logicians. It brings together scholars from both law and philosophy, and looks at the application of 'the new logics' to law and legal ordering, in a number of legal systems. The first Part explores the ways in which the new logics shed light on the functioning of legal orders, including the structure of legal argumentation and the rules of evidence. The second addresses how non-classical logics can help us to understand the interactions between multiple legal orders, in a range of contexts including domestic and international law. The final Part examines particular issues in the applicability of non-classical logics to legal reasoning. This book will be of interest to jurisprudence and logic scholars and students who want to deepen their understanding of relationships between law and legal reasoning, and learn about recent developments in formal logic.

This book is unique in presenting an interdisciplinary conversation between jurists and logicians. It brings together scholars from both law and philosophy, and looks at the application of 'the new logics' to law and legal ordering, in a number of legal systems. The first Part explores the ways in which the new logics shed light on the functioning of legal orders, including the structure of legal argumentation and the rules of evidence. The second addresses how non-classical logics can help us to understand the interactions between multiple legal orders, in a range of contexts including domestic and international law. The final Part examines particular issues in the applicability of non-classical logics to legal reasoning. This book will be of interest to jurisprudence and logic scholars and students who want to deepen their understanding of relationships between law and legal reasoning, and learn about recent developments in formal logic.

Legal Traditions of the World places national laws in the broader context of major legal traditions, those of chthonic (or indigenous) law, talmudic law, civil law, islamic law, common law, hindu law and confucian law. Each tradition is examined in terms of its institutions and substantive law, its founding concepts and methods, its attitude towards the concept of change and its teaching on relations with other traditions and peoples. The concept of legal tradition is explained as non-conflictual in character and compatible with new and inclusive forms of logic.

The concept of common law has been one of the most important conceptual instruments of the western legal tradition, but it has been neglected by legal theory and legal history for the last two centuries. There were many common laws in Europe, including what is known in English as the common law, yet they have never previously been studied as a general phenomenon. Until the nineteenth century, the common laws of Europe lived in constant interaction with the particular laws which prevailed in their territories, and with one another. Common law was the main instrument of conciliation of laws which were drawn from different sources, though applicable on a given territory. Claims of universality could be, and were, reconciled with claims of particularity. Nineteenth and twentieth century legal theory taught that law was the exclusive product of the state, yet common laws continued to function on a world-wide basis throughout the entire period of legal nationalism. As national legal exclusivity is increasingly challenged by the process of globalization, the concept of common law can be looked to once again as a means of conceptualisation and justification of law beyond the state, while still supporting state and other local forms of normativity.

The concept of common law has been one of the most important conceptual instruments of the western legal tradition, but it has been neglected by legal theory and legal history for the last two centuries. There were many common laws in Europe, including what is known in English as the common law, yet they have never previously been studied as a general phenomenon. Until the nineteenth century, the common laws of Europe lived in constant interaction with the particular laws which prevailed in their territories, and with one another. Common law was the main instrument of conciliation of laws which were drawn from different sources, though applicable on a given territory. Claims of universality could be, and were, reconciled with claims of particularity. Nineteenth and twentieth century legal theory taught that law was the exclusive product of the state, yet common laws continued to function on a world-wide basis throughout the entire period of legal nationalism. As national legal exclusivity is increasingly challenged by the process of globalization, the concept of common law can be looked to once again as a means of conceptualization and justification of law beyond the state, while still supporting state and other local forms of normativity.