Three main tasks can be identified for comparative law. The first is to investigate differences between legal systems and, in particular, to distinguish between “real” differences, where the outcomes of the application of principles diverge between legal systems, and “superficial” differences, where similar outcomes are masked by the conceptual structures of the relevant systems. The second is to trace developments in the relationships between legal systems and thus to explore tendencies of convergence or divergence (in terms of “real” differences), noting that in some areas convergence may be required under international legal instruments. The third task is to explain and to evaluate such developments: why do systems converge or diverge? Is convergence desirable or undesirable?

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0020589300063259

Competition Between National Legal Systems: A Contribution of Economic Analysis To Comparative Law

Law, of course, exists in society and for society's needs. It is a man-made construct to facilitate social activities. Law is inconceivable without society. Societies vary greatly, and so do legal rules. A perennial question is “Do legal rules reflect a society's desires, needs and aspirations?” The answer which is ordinarily given or is just assumed is positive though minor qualifications are usually urged. And yet, the two most startling, and at the same time most obvious, characteristics of legal rules are the apparent ease with which they can be transplanted from one system or society to another, and their capacity for long life. With transmission or the passing of time modifications may well occur, but frequently the alterations in the rules have only limited significance.

Comparative Law and Legal Change

• A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers.

/pdf/contributory-negligence-a-historical-and-comparative-study-2ygx5ruxl9.pdf

Contributory Negligence: A Historical and Comparative Study

The effect of Civil law doctrines of precedent on the process of formation and evolution of case law is examined. Unlike the Common law systems, Civil law jurisdictions do not adopt a stare decisis principle in adjudication. In deciding any given legal issue, precedents serve a persuasive role. Civil law courts are expected to take past decisions into account when there is a sufficient level of consistency in case law. Generally speaking, no single decision binds a court and no relevance is given to split jurisprudence. Once uniform case law develops, courts treat precedents as a source of "soft" law, taking them into account when reaching a decision. The higher the level of uniformity in past precedents, the greater the persuasive force of case law. Although Civil law jurisdictions do not allow dissenting judges to attach a dissent to a majority opinion, cases that do not conform to the dominant trend serve as a signal of dissent among the judiciary. These cases influence future decisions in varying ways in different legal traditions. Judges may also be influenced by recent jurisprudential trends and fads in case law. The evolution of case law under these doctrines of precedents is modeled, considering the possibility for consolidation, corrosion and stability of legal rules. The effect of different doctrines of precedent on the patterns of evolution of the legal system is studied.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID534504_code254274.pdf?abstractid=534504&rulid=9306420&mirid=5

Judicial Precedents in Civil Law Systems: A Dynamic Analysis

This thesis explores a series of middle-range hypotheses concerning the interrelation of law and development. These hypotheses are made concrete enough to serve as policy prescriptions by applying them to the problems of Ethiopia, a country which displays most of the development constraints that have been identified in other Third World countries. Development is best understood as a dynamic process, as the broadening of subsistence and small-scale economic, political, legal and social 'markets' that effects a cumulative growth in a wide variety of resources. In Ethiopia, given her highly stratified and fragmented societies, this entails a socio-economic equalisation and integration, a wholesale structural transformation rather than the narrow policies of an economic growth advocated by many development theorists. The magnitude of this transformation, the manifest need for extensive and intensive development planning and the socialist predilections of Ethiopia's revolutionary military rulers (the Derg) suggest that massive state intervention in the economy is both inevitable and the only feasible path to an Ethiopian development which is, nevertheless, fraught with many hazards. It is therefore impossible to segregate economic activity from what is, in Ethiopia, an undifferentiated mass of law, politics and administration. The largest single bottleneck to Ethiopian development is the virtual absence of any political development registered under Haile Selassie or the Derg. The role of law in eliminating an Ethiopian "soft state" (Myrdal's term), which is far from soft on the poor and powerless, is surveyed and law's role in the aggregation, allocation and delegation of a variety of resources, in the formulation and implementation of interrelated policies, and in the amelioration of species of injustice is analysed in detail.

F. H. Lawson

Papers

A Common Lawyer Looks at the Civil Law: Five Lectures Delivered at the University of Michigan, November 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20, 1953

The Oxford Law School, 1850-1965

A Common Lawyer Looks at the Civil Law

Amos and Walton's introduction to French law

The rational strength of English law