Comparative Law Before The Courts

While the role of comparative law in the courts was previously only an exception, foreign sources are now increasingly becoming a source of law in regular use in supreme and constitutional courts. There is considerable variation between the practices of courts and the role of comparative law, and methods remain controversial. In the US, the issue has been one of intense public debate and it is still one of the major dividing issues in the discussion about the role of the courts. Contributing to the existing discussion of the use of comparative law in the courts, this book provides an inclusive, coherent, and practical analysis of the relevant law and jurisprudence in comparative law in the courts. It examines the consequences for court procedures and the form of judgments, as well as how foreign sources are drawn upon in private international law, European law, administrative law, and constitutional law as well as before general courts. The book also includes case studies of comparative law used in particular spheres of the law, such as tort law and consumer law. Written by practising judges and lawyers as well as leading academics, this book serves as a central reference point concerning the role of comparative law before the courts.

Comparative law is increasingly recognized as an essential reference point for judicial decision-making. The English courts have long been open to considering how legal problems are solved in other jurisdictions and there have been parallel developments across the Channel. Comparative law is gaining in utility and relevance in the decisions of the courts. This book is extremely timely, bringing together a collection of essays by distinguished jurists from the judiciary and academia and providing an important contribution to analysis of this topic. Contributors focus on a variety of European jurisdictions but also look at North America and South Africa. The first part of the book deals with the problems and possibilities of comparative law in national courts. Discussion ranges from the problems of proof of foreign law in national courts to legal borrowings and institutional mechanisms for international judicial cooperation in national courts. The second part of the book, focusing on European Law, contains a range of chapters exploring in a number of dimensions the suggestion that an intensification of comparative law methodology in the courts might be attributable to the growth and impact of European supra-national law. The third part of the book takes the argument into the field of administrative law, an area which has traditionally been relatively impervious to comparative cross-fertilization between European states. The fourth part of the book covers a widely diverse set of topics in the field of general and mainly private law.

This book examines an unexplored method of interpretation: the use of domestic law in the interpretation of international law.

This new volume contains fourteen national reports and a General Report on the use of comparative law by courts, which were presented at the XIVth International Congress of Comparative Law in Athens. It provides a general survey of the frequency and methods of a comparative recourse to foreign law by courts, describing both the methods of such recourse and the typical fields in which it is undertaken. The reports offer an interesting cross-section of contemporary court practice from a wide variety of countries around the world andndash; large and small, unitary and federal, and with differing historical backgrounds. All demonstrate the needs of national courts to look to foreign law for inspiration or as a model for dealing with new, unsettled issues of national law, and the reports illustrate well the impact of divergent traditions, attitudes and surrounding circumstances. Of special interest are both the role of comparative law and the comparative method employed in the practice of a supranational court, such as the European Court of Justice. In addition to the General Report, this volume contains national reports from the following countries: Canada, European Union, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States of America.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Expert scholars from around the world offer a history of law in the region while also providing a wider context for present-day Asian law. The contributors share insightful perspectives on comparative law, the role of courts, legal transplants, intelle

Judges are society’s elders and experts, our masters and mediators. We depend on them to dispense justice with integrity, deliberation, and efficiency. Yet judges, as Alexander Hamilton famously noted, lack the power of the purse or the sword. They must rely almost entirely on their reputations to secure compliance with their decisions, obtain resources, and maintain their political influence. In Judicial Reputation, Nuno Garoupa and Tom Ginsburg explain how reputation is not only an essential quality of the judiciary as a whole, but also of individual judges. Perceptions of judicial systems around the world range from widespread admiration to utter contempt, and as judges participate within these institutions some earn respect, while others are scorned. Judicial Reputation explores how judges respond to the reputational incentives provided by the different audiences they interact with—lawyers, politicians, the media, and the public itself—and how institutional structures mediate these interactions. The judicial structure is best understood not through the lens of legal culture or tradition, but through the economics of information and reputation. Transcending those conventional lenses, Garoupa and Ginsburg employ their long-standing research on the latter to examine the fascinating effects that governmental interactions, multicourt systems, extrajudicial work, and the international rule-of-law movement have had on the reputations of judges in this era.

Comparative law textbook covering major legal system - discusses historical formation, structure and sources of law; covers socialist law, case law, customary law, Islamic law, etc., with partic. Reference to China, India, Japan, UK and USA; includes information sources. Bibliography.