Codification In The British Empire And America

Lang analyzes efforts made in the United Kingdom and the United States to replace or modify the common law with codes since the origins of codification in the nineteenth century. Lang is especially interested in the tension between written codes, which are characteristic of continental law, and the common law, which is grounded in custom. Since its publication in 1924, this book has been cited often in articles dealing with codes and comparative law.

Alibis of Empire presents a novel account of the origins, substance, and afterlife of late imperial ideology. Karuna Mantena challenges the idea that Victorian empire was primarily legitimated by liberal notions of progress and civilization. In fact, as the British Empire gained its farthest reach, its ideology was being dramatically transformed by a self-conscious rejection of the liberal model. The collapse of liberal imperialism enabled a new culturalism that stressed the dangers and difficulties of trying to "civilize" native peoples. And, hand in hand with this shift in thinking was a shift in practice toward models of indirect rule. As Mantena shows, the work of Victorian legal scholar Henry Maine was at the center of these momentous changes. Alibis of Empire examines how Maine's sociotheoretic model of "traditional" society laid the groundwork for the culturalist logic of late empire. In charting the movement from liberal idealism, through culturalist explanation, to retroactive alibi within nineteenth-century British imperial ideology, Alibis of Empire unearths a striking and pervasive dynamic of modern empire.

Originally published: New York: New York University Press, 1956. x, 438 pp. This book consists of papers delivered by participants in the conference sponsored by the New York University Institute of Comparative Law to honor the 150th anniversary of the French Civil Code, which was the largest public celebration of the event in the legal world. The papers deal with the influence of the Code upon common-law countries in their efforts to manage statute and case law and gives examples of modern attempts at restatement of the law and uniform state laws as examples of the effect of the Code's coherence and logic. The papers were given by notable legal scholars such as Benjamin Akzin, Ren Cassin, C.J. Friedrich, Arthur von Mehren, Roscoe Pound, Thibadeau Rinfret, Max Rheinstein, Angelo Piero Sereni, Jack Bernard Tate and Arthur T. Vanderbilt. At the time of these lectures Schwartz was Director of the Institute. Includes a bibliography by Julius J. Marke. Reprint of the first edition. BERNARD SCHWARTZ 1923-1997] was professor of law and director of the Institute of Comparative Law, New York University. He was the author of over fifty books, including French Administrative Law and the Common-Law World (1954, reprinted 2006), the five-volume Commentary on the Constitution of the United States (1963-1968), Constitutional Law: A Textbook (2d ed., 1979), Administrative Law: A Casebook (4th ed., 1994) and A History of the Supreme Court (1993).

Starting in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century, this book takes the reader on a journey through the USA and the development of their civil codes. From Georgia and New York, civil codes traveled to California and Dakota Territory; in the Great Plains, they made their way to Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota by the end of the century. Unveiling the history of nineteenth-century civil codes in the USA, this book examines their origin stories, circulation, and usage by focusing on the social-historical context of their drafting and legal concepts. “Rocheton's work, published four decades after Cook's book on ‘The American Codification Movement,’ contains an exhaustive and insightful analysis of nineteenth-century civil codes. It thoroughly discusses their context, how they were conceived, discussed, drafted and approved, their main foreign influences and content, and their practical operation." - Aniceto Masferrer, University of Valencia “While there is a vast corpus of literature on codification and, more specifically, civil codes in the civil law tradition, it is much less known that six US states codified their private laws during the 19th century. This book tells the fascinating story. Spoiler alert: it’s a family affair.” - Stefan Vogenauer, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory

The Criminalization series arose from an interdisciplinary investigation into criminalization, focussing on the principles that might guide decisions about what kinds of conduct should be criminalized, and the forms that criminalization should take. Developing a normative theory of criminalization, the series tackles the key questions at the heart of the issue: what principles and goals should guide legislators in deciding what to criminalize? How should criminal wrongs be classified and differentiated? How should law enforcement officials apply the law's specifications of offences? This, the fifth book in the series, offers a historical and conceptual account of the development of the modern criminal law in England and as it has spread to common law jurisdictions around the world. The book offers a historical perspective on the development of theories of criminalization. It shows how the emergence of theories of criminalization is inextricably linked to modern understandings of the criminal law as a conceptually distinct body of rules, and how this in turn has been shaped by the changing functions of criminal law as an instrument of government in the modern state. The book is structured in two main parts. The first traces the development of the modern law as a distinct, and conceptually distinct body of rules, looking in particular at ideas of jurisdiction, codification and responsibility. The second part then engages in detailed analysis of specific areas of criminal law, focusing on patterns of criminalization in relation to property, the person, and sexual conduct.

From articles centering on the detailed and doctrinal exposition of the law to those which reside almost wholly within the realm of philosophical ethics, this volume affords comprehensive treatment to both sides of the philosophico-legal equation. Systematic and sustained coverage of the many dimensions of legal thought gives ample expression to the true breadth and depth of the philosophy of law, with coverage of: The modes of knowing and the kinds of normativity used in the law; Studies in international, constitutional, criminal, administrative, persons and property, contracts and tort law-including their historical origins and worldwide ramifications; Current legal cultures such as common law and civilian, European, and Aboriginal; Influential jurisprudents and their biographies; All influential schools and methods

Technological revolutions have had an unquestionable, if still debatable, impact on culture and society—perhaps none more so than the written word. In the legal realm, the rise of literacy and print culture made possible the governing of large empires, the memorializing of private legal transactions, and the broad distribution of judicial precedents and legislation. Yet each of these technologies has its shadow side: written or printed texts easily become static and the textual practices of the legal profession can frustrate ordinary citizens, who may be bound by documents whose implications they scarcely understand. Parchment, Paper, Pixels offers an engaging exploration of the impact of three technological revolutions on the law. Beginning with the invention of writing, continuing with the mass production of identical copies of legal texts brought about by the printing press, and ending with a discussion of computers and the Internet, Peter M. Tiersma traces the journey of contracts, wills, statutes, judicial opinions, and other legal texts through the past and into the future. Though the ultimate effects of modern technologies on our legal system remain to be seen, Parchment, Paper, Pixels offers readers an insightful guide as to how our shifting forms of technological literacy have shaped and continue to shape the practice of law today.