A Common Law For Europe

An essential guide for lawmakers, scholars, and students of law, this work takes on the formidable task of providing a detailed overview of the harmonization of law in the European Union. Skillfully researched, the authors seek to approach this topic with an eye to the recent enlargement process. In highlighting the most recent actions of the European Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance, the book seeks to analyze the future strengths and pitfalls of EU Common Law. Court rulings are quoted at length, and work in conjunction with text inserts in providing a format that breaks down complex information. This open style of the book gives researchers the ability to quickly locate useful information and cite statements from EU institutions. In outlining the sources and institutions of Community Law, and the challenges in harmonizing national and supra-national law-books, 'A Common Law for Europe' has done a tremendous service for academics and future leaders of the European Union.

The "Europeanization" of European private law has recently received much scrutiny and attention. Harmonizing European systems of law represents one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. In effect, it is the adaptation of national laws into a new supra-national law, a process that signifies the beginning of a new age in Europe. This volume seeks to frame the creation of a new European Common Law in the context of recent events in European integration. The work is envisioned as a guide and written in a research friendly style that includes text inserts and an extensive bibliography. The detailed analysis and research this volume accomplishes is invaluable to those scholars and lawmakers who are the next generation of European leaders.

The Lincoln's Inn annual European Law Conference is the largest public educational event in the Inn's calendar. Over the past ten years, the Conference, and the Sir Thomas More Lecture, which is its centrepiece, have brought to the Inn some of the most illustrious figures in the world of European Law and Human Rights. This volume reproduces the text of the annual Sir Thomas More Lecture, together with other lectures and talks given in conjunction with it, or throughout the year, as part of the Inn's extensive programme of teaching and training in European Law and Human Rights.General Principles of Law as Part of a Common Law of Europe contents include: General Principles of Law as Part of a Common Law of Europe by the Hon Professor Thijmen Koopmans; Remedies Before the European Court by John A Usher; Remedies Before the National Courts by Lord Justice Robert Walker; Interlocutory Remedies by Judge John D Cooke.

"The law is not a science, for its purpose is not to find out natural facts. It is an art as architecture is an art: its function is practical, but it is enhanced by such qualities as elegance, economy and clarity. The law has two practical purposes: first, to require, forbid or penalise forms of conduct between citizen and citizen, and citizen and State; secondly, to provide formal rules for classes of human activity whose fulfilment would otherwise be confused, uncertain or ineffective. Laws in the former category include every provision for a remedy"--

It is no secret that Western civilization is under siege. Outside the gates, the world demands a share of the wealth as well as the power that the West enjoys. Inside the gates, the Western way of life is challenged by those who demand fundamental change in the direction of social justice. Upon closer inspection, Western civilization evinces a divergence within itself. It proves to comprise two blocs, with opposing agendas and opposing ideologies. The one bloc is located within the Anglo-American orbit, the other within the orbit of Continental Europe. This explains the drive toward European Union. The EU gives formal shape to this ideological coherence among the Continental European nations. By the same token, it explains the drive toward “Brexit” in the United Kingdom, the UK being part of the Anglo-American orbit. This perspective opens the door to understanding the dynamic of global politics. Far from being a case of the “West versus the Rest,” the global political dynamic is driven by this divergence within Western civilization itself. The drive toward global governance, universal jurisdiction, the normalization of the sexual revolution, the climate change agenda, are all expressions, not of the rest of the world, but of the West, and within the West, of the Continental European bloc. As such, this is a question of how we are to understand the law of nations: what is sovereignty, and where is it located? This also explains why the USA inevitably stands in the way of the Continental European agenda. Its tradition, its ideology, is fundamentally other, and the two cannot be reconciled. This also explains unrelenting anti-Americanism even in the USA itself, propagated by media, academia, even political parties. The ideological split runs right through American society itself, weakening it from within. For the one tradition is home-grown, the other is imported. How are we to explain this divergence? Where did these two opposing orientations come from? What more can be said about their conflict, and what will be the result of it? These are the questions raised in A Common Law. Published on the 20th anniversary of the first edition, this second edition includes the first edition in its entirety, and supplements it with running commentary as well as additional material bringing the issues forward to the situation post-2016.

Comprehensive and accessible, this book offers a concise synthesis of the evolution of the law in Western Europe, from ancient Rome to the beginning of the twentieth century. It situates law in the wider framework of Europe’s political, economic, social and cultural developments.

"Written with a vigor and passion rarely found in a scholarly text, this broad history of the western European legal tradition is now available in an elegant and lucid translation from the original Italian." "Here Manlio Bellomo looks back to a time when Europe had a common law that transcended national and legal boundaries. This common law, which the author calls the ius commune, developed in the twelfth century from the fusion of Roman, canon, and feudal law, and held sway for centuries until several factors ultimately conspired to undermine its influence. Linking his extensive history to modern-day concerns, Bellomo argues that the codification that occurred in European countries during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has introduced ambiguity, rigidity, and uncertainty into legal systems. A new common law for Europe, he asserts, would provide a much better vehicle for legal change and development in a time when the economic barriers between European nations are crumbling." "Having set the stage for a historical treatment of the topic, Bellomo then describes the beginnings of the ius commune in the schools of the twelfth century. He explains how the iura propria, or local laws, emerged from the unifying norms and principles of the ius commune. Bellomo uses carefully chosen examples to illustrate how for centuries the ius commune permeated every aspect of the iura propria, marking European law indelibly with its stamp. He discusses the great jurists who gave common law its intellectual vigor - Gratian, Accursius, Odofredus, Cinus, and Bartolus - and concludes with an account of the humanist jurists of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and early seventeenth centuries."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved