Showing papers on "Common law published in 1993"

Equal Opportunity Law and the Construction of Internal Labor Markets

Abstract: Internal labor markets have been explained with efficiency and control arguments; however, retrospective event-history data from 279 organizations suggest that federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) law was the force behind the spread of formal promotion mechanisms after 1964. The findings highlight the way in which American public policy, with its broad outcome-oriented guidelines for organizations, stimulates managers to experiment with compliance mechanisms with an eye to judicial sanction. In response to EEO legislation and case law, personnel managers devised and diffused employment practices that treat all classes of workers as ambitious and achievement oriented in the process of formalizing and rationalizing promotion decisions.

Equal Opportunity Law and the Construction of Internal Labor Markets

Abstract: Internal labor markets have been explained with efficiency and control arguments; however, retrospective event-history data from 279 organizations suggest that federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) law was the force behind the spread of formal promotion mechanisms after 1964. The findings highlight the way in which American public policy, with its broad outcome-oriented guidelines for organizations, stimulates managers to experiment with compliance mechanisms with and eye to judicial sanction. In response to EEO legislation and case law, personnel managers devised and diffused employment practices that treat all classes of workers as ambitious and achievement oriented in the process of formalizing and rationalizing promotion decisions.

Introduction to comparative law

Abstract: Part I A General considerations: the concept of comparative law the functions and aims of comparative law the method of comparative law the history of comparative law. Part I B The legal families of the world: the style of legal families - the romanistic legal family, the history of French law, the spirit and essential features of the code civil, the reception of the code civil courts and lawyers in France and Italy the Germanic legal family - the history of German law, the German civil code, the general civil code of Austria, the Swiss civil code the Anglo-American legal family - the development of the English common law, courts and lawyers in England, the spread of the common law throughout the world, the law of the United States of America, law-finding and procedure in common law and civil law the Nordic legal family - Scandinavian law, past and present law in the Far East Chinese law Japanese Law religious legal systems Islamic law Hindu law. Part II A Contract: the formation of contracts - juristic act, contract, and general conditions of business, contractual capacity, offer and acceptance, illegality and immorality, indicia of seriousness, the construction of contracts, mistake, deceit, and duress, representation, assignment, contracts for the benefit of third parties the performance of contracts - claims to performance and their enforcement, breach of contract, the effect of supervening events. Part II B Unjustified enrichment: unjustified enrichment in general unjustified enrichment specific topics. Part II C Tort: tort in general liability for others strict liability invasions of the right of personality.

American Legal Realism

Abstract: I. ANTECEDENTS The Common Law (1881) "The Origin and Scope of the American Doctrine of Constitutional Law" (1893) The Path of the Law (1897) Lochner v. New York (1905) (Holmes, J., dissenting) "Liberty of Contract" (1909) The Nature and Sources of the Law (1909) "Law in Books and Law in Action" (1910) "Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning" (1913) II. THE STRUGGLE OVER THE MEANING OF "REALISM" "A Realistic Jurisprudence-The Next Step" (1930) "The Call for Realist Jurisprudence" (1931) "Some Realism About Realism-Responding to Dean Pound" (1931) III. LAW AND THE MARKET "Offer and Acceptance, and Some of the Resulting Legal Relations" (1917) "The Standardizing of Contracts" (1917) "What Price Contract?-An Essay in Perspective" (1931) "The Reliance Interest in Contract Damages" (1936-1937) IV. THE CRITIQUE OF THE PUBLIC/PRIVATE DISTINCTION "Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State" (1923) "Property and Sovereignty" (1927) "Law Making by Private Groups" (1937) M. Witmark & Sons v. Fred Fisher Music Co. (1942) (Frank, J., dissenting) V. LAW AND ORGANIZATIONAL SOCIETY Vegelahn V. Guntner (1896) " The Basis of Vicarious Liability" (1917) International News Service v. Associated Press (1918) "The Historic Background of Corporate Legal Personality" (1926) The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932) The Administrative Process (1938) VI. LEGAL REASONING The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921) Pennsylvania Coal Company v. Mahon (1922) "Logical Method and Law" (1924) The Theory of Judicial Decision: Or How Judges Think" (1925) "A Return to Stare Decisis" (1928) "The Judgement Intuitive: The Function of the 'Hunch' in Judicial Decision" (1929) Law and the Modern Mind (1930) "Transcendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach" (1935) "Remarks on the Theory of Apellate Decision and the Rules or Canons About How Statutes Are to Be Construed" (1950) VII. LAW AS SOCIAL SCIENCE Brief Defendant in Error, Muller v. Oregon (1908) "Scientific Method and the Law" (1927) The Cheyenne Way (1941) "Law and Learning Theory: A Study in Legal Control" (1943) VIII. LEGAL EDUCATION AND LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP Summary of Studies in Legal Education (1929) "Institute Priests and Yale Observers-A Reply to Dean Goodrich" (1936) "Goodbye to Law Reviews" (1936) Notes Bibliography

The Prince and the Law, 1200-1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition

Abstract: The power of the prince versus the rights of his subjects is one of the basic struggles in the history of law and government. In this masterful history of monarchy, conceptions of law, and due process, Kenneth Pennington addresses that struggle and opens an entirely new vista in the study of Western legal tradition. Pennington investigates legal interpretations of the monarch's power from the twelfth to the seventeenth century. Then, tracing the evolution of defendants' rights, he demonstrates that the origins of due process are not rooted in English common law as is generally assumed. It was not a sturdy Anglo-Saxon, but, most probably, a French jurist of the late thirteenth century who wrote, "A man is innocent until proven guilty." This is the first book to examine in detail the origins of our concept of due process. It also reveals a fascinating paradox: while a theory of individual rights was evolving, so, too, was the concept of the prince's "absolute power." Pennington illuminates this paradox with a clarity that will greatly interest students of political theory as well as legal historians.

International Law: Cases and Materials

Abstract: This classic international law casebook has been updated to cover recent case law, including the International Court's Extradite or Prosecute (Belgium v. Senegal) case, and the Supreme Court's decisions in Samantar v. Yousef (on foreign sovereign immunity) and Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (on the Alien Tort Statute). With extraordinary range and depth, this casebook probes "hot topics" such as the Syrian civil war, the seizure of pirates, and the ICC's indictments of African leaders, all calculated to provoke engaging classroom discussions. This casebook is designed for introductory and advanced classes, with detailed readings on the structure and actors of international law and on specialized areas.

Law, Liberty, and Justice: The Legal Foundations of British Constitutionalism

Abstract: The book makes a fresh appraisal of the main principles of constitutional law, seeking to stimulate renewed debate about the fundamentals of British constitutionalism. Rejecting a purely fromal concept of the rule of law, Allan argues that public law should more fully and openly reflect the principles of liberty and justice which constitute the underlying point and substance of the rule of law. The connection between law and justice is ultimately secured by the primary role of the individual conscience in making judgements about what the law requires. And just as no court is ever an infallible arbiter of legal obligation - the individual may sometimes have to stand by his own conscientious reading of the law - Parliament cannot be accorded unqualified authority to change the law. The sovreignty of Parliament is necessarily limited by residual principles of leberal constitutionalism; any other view would contradict the rule of law. Standard comparisons between written and unwritten constitutions, and traditional accounts of the separarion of powers, ovscure more than they reveal. The interpretation and application of statutes must always be a matter of judicial deliberation and judgement, just as the application of government policies and administrative orders is ultimately subject to the requirements of justice in particular cases.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self

Abstract: By any measure, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., led a full and remarkable life. He was tall and exceptionally attractive, especially as he aged, with piercing eyes, a shock of white hair, and prominent moustache. He was the son of a famous father (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., renowned for "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table"), a thrice-wounded veteran of the Civil War, a Harvard-educated member of Brahmin Boston, the acquaintance of Longfellow, Lowell, and Emerson, and for a time a close friend of William James. He wrote one of the classic works of American legal scholarship, The Common Law, and he served with distinction on the Supreme Court of the United States. He was actively involved in the Court's work into his nineties. In Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, G. Edward White, the acclaimed biographer of Earl Warren and one of America's most esteemed legal scholars, provides a rounded portrait of this remarkable jurist. We see Holmes's early life in Boston and at Harvard, his ambivalent relationship with his father, and his harrowing service during the Civil War (he was wounded three times, twice nearly fatally, shot in the chest in his first action, and later shot through the neck at Antietam). White examines Holmes's curious, childless marriage (his diary for 1872 noted on June 17th that he had married Fanny Bowditch Dixwell, and the next sentence indicated that he had become the sole editor of the American Law Review) and he includes new information on Holmes's relationship with Clare Castletown. White not only provides a vivid portrait of Holmes's life, but examines in depth the inner life and thought of this preeminent legal figure. There is a full chapter devoted to The Common Law, for instance, and throughout the book, there is astute commentary on Holmes's legal writings. Indeed, White reveals that some of the themes that have dominated 20th-century American jurisprudence--including protection for free speech and the belief that "judges make the law"--originated in Holmes's work. Perhaps most important, White suggests that understanding Holmes's life is crucial to understanding his work, and he continually stresses the connections between Holmes's legal career and his personal life. For instance, his desire to distinguish himself from his father and from the "soft" literary culture of his father's generation drove him to legal scholarship of a particularly demanding kind.White's biography of Earl Warren was hailed by Anthony Lewis on the cover of The New York Times Book Review as "serious and fascinating," and The Los Angeles Times noted that "White has gone beyond the labels and given us the man." In Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, White has produced an equally serious and fascinating biography, one that again goes beyond the labels and gives us the man himself.

Introduction to Computer Law

Abstract: The new edition of this introductory textbook, formerly published as "Computers and the Law", incorporates new case law and important statutes such as the Computer Misuse Act 1990 It discusses the EC directive on legal protection of computer software and reverse analysis / compatibility issues and also offers a coherent discussion of the conjunction between the law and computer technology It describes the legal implications of acquiring, developing and using computer equipment and software and analyzes the impact that technology has on the law The text concentrates on the theoretical foundations and legal grey areas which are of direct relevance to organizations and persons involved with computers, to provide the practical guidance needed to use the law constructively, allow for its deficiencies and avoid its many pitfalls This edition maintains the clear and concise style adopted in the first edition and remains accessible to the reader It is aimed at HND Business Information Technology, Degree and HND in Computer Studies, LLB options on computer law The books is particularly suitable for final-year computer science undergraduates taking "Legal and Professional Issues" options It should also be relevant to the computer industry and law professionals

Law's Knowledge: The Judge, The Expert, The Battered Woman, and Her Syndrome

Abstract: With the increased public sympathy for women who kill their abusers, a return to examination of law's handling of these deaths is timely.' The sympathy springs from criticism of the trial process as mediated to the jury by the judge. There seems to be an intuitive public understanding that long experience of being a victim of violence may lead a woman to kill. The focus of this paper is on the resistances of English law to women's accounts of their experiences. This is marked when compared to developments in Australia and Canada. Some common law jurisdictions can accommodate the experiences of woman as 'other'; to allow her knowledge to enter a body of law hitherto male. Central to this paper are the mechanisms of evidence and narrative which judges operate as a mise en scene for the jury. These mechanisms control law's knowledge: what law permits itself to know of the death, the events which preceded it, and whether the killer's act can be justified or partially excused.

Against Legal Centrism

Abstract: Mark Twain once quipped that everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it. Similarly, everyone talks about empirical research in law and economics, but few people have done anything about it. Robert Ellickson is among those few. To find out how neighbors settle disputes, he interviewed ranchers and officials in Shasta County, California, concerning the harm caused by straying cattle. Ellickson reported his results in several journal articles which are collected and synthesized in a new book with the attractive title, Order Without Law (p. viii).1 Part One of the book recounts his empirical findings, and Part Two interprets them using theories from law and economics, law and society, and game theory. Taken together, the two parts of the book constitute the most systematic and thoughtful study of customary law to appear in recent years. Many scholars regard customary law in post-industrial society as a vestigial organ, like the human appendix. For example, Salmond thought that customary law, though originally important, naturally yields to statutes as the state acquires power.2 Behind this opinion lies the conviction that rational law cannot arise spontaneously from human interaction, but instead requires deliberation and debate. Similarly, most American scholars apparently regard the common law process as one in

The Legal Past of Early New England: Notes for the Study of Law, Legal Culture, and Intellectual History

Abstract: Richard Ross is a visiting assistant professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School and a graduate student in history at Yale University. He thanks Stanley Katz and Stanton Wheeler for their help and advice. 1 Two caveats: First, I shall concentrate on the legal history of colonial New England, treating other regions less thoroughly. Second, my working definition of "early American legal history" is somewhat idiosyncratic. I exclude the vast literature on constitutional history, while considering the work of several scholars who neither identify themselves as nor are commonly thought of as "legal historians." 2See, e.g., David Grayson Allen, In English Ways: The Movement of Societies and the Transferal of English Local Law and Custom to Massachusetts Bay in the Seventeenth Century (Chapel Hill, N. C., I98i); Thomas G. Barnes, "Thomas Lechford and the Earliest Lawyering in Massachusetts, I638-i641," in Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, LXII, Law in Colonial Massachusetts, 163 o-I8oo (Boston, I984), 3-38; Barbara A. Black, "Nathaniel Byfield, 1653-1733," ibid., 57-105; W. Hamilton Bryson, "English Common Law in Virginia,"Journal of Legal History, VI (I985), 249-256; David H. Flaherty, "Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, I692-1728," in William Pencak and Wythe W. Holt, Jr., The Law in America, 160o7-1861 (New York, i989), 114-154; Marilyn L. Geiger, The Administration of Justice in Colonial Maryland, 1632-1689 (New York, I987); David Thomas Konig, "'Dale's Laws' and the Non-Common Law Origins of Criminal Justice in Virginia," American Journal of Legal History, XXVI (i 982), 354-375; Deborah A. Rosen, "The Supreme Court ofJudicature of Colonial New York: Civil Practice in Transition, I69qI-1760," Legal History Review, V (I987), 2 13-247; Carole Shammas, "English Inheritance Law and Its Transfer to the Colonies," Am. J. Legal Hist., XXXI (I987), I45-i63Scholars of doctrine and institutions devote less attention these days to what was once the grand project in the field-establishing the relationship between the colonial and the British legal structure and practice. Current work is somewhat more eclectic. Peter Russell, for example, situates the i8th-century history of the Massachusetts Superior Court within a framework of modernization theory, while Michael A. Bellesiles traces the "bottom-up" percolation of legal institutions in early Vermont; Russell, His Majesty's Judges: Provincial Society and the Superior Court in Massachusetts, i692-1774 (New York, I990); Bellesiles, "The Establish-

Electronic Media Law and Regulation

Abstract: Electronic Media Law and Regulation is a case-based law text that provides students with direct access to case law as well as the context in which to understand its meaning and impact. The text overviews the major legal and regulatory issues facing broadcasting, cable, and developing media in today's industry. Presenting information from major cases, rules, regulations, and legal documents in a concise and readable form, this book helps current and prospective media professsionals understand the complex realm of law and regulation. Students will learn how to avoid common legal pitfalls and anticipate situations that may have potential legal consequences. This sixth edition provides annotated cases with margin notes, and new chapters address such timely issues as media ownership, freedom of information, entertainment rights, and cyber law.

European Community law

Abstract: This work is part of the Questions and Answers series, designed specifically for the examination candidate. The books are written by experienced law lecturers, who are themselves examiners. Each book in the series contains 50 questions and suggested answers covering the range of examination topics commonly found in law degrees, CPE and vocational examinations at many universities and colleges. The purpose of the books is to illustrate the clear logical approach which is expected of a good honours degree student. Each book is divided into chapters according to topic area and each chapter begins with an introduction outlining the main points which should have been mastered before tackling the questions in that chapter. Each answer is supplemented by additional notes which pick up points of particular difficulty or refer to additional or alternative material which could be used in the answer. This text in the Questions and Answers series aims to help students taking examinations in European Community law deal with the way that different parts of EC law are often brought together in one question. The book demonstrates how EC law differs from the United Kingdom common law tradition.

Legal and ethical issues concerning children's rights of consent.

Abstract: This paper examines children's rights under the Charter, the law of consent, and the ethics associated with the consent to treatment issue. Consistent with the Charter, the common law recognizes the right of competent minors to consent on their own behalf. Decisions regarding competence to consent are made on the basis of cognitive capacity, and not age. In contrast, consent legislation is largely silent on the question of capacity and instead specifies arbitrary ages at which minors may consent. Considerable variation exists across provinces both in the legal age of consent and in the extent to which common law principles are reflected in consent legislation. As a result of the complexity and apparent contradictions of the law, the circumstances under which minors may consent remain unclear in the minds of many practitioners. Equally problematic from the perspective of the psychologist, is the fact that much of consent legislation is directed towards treatment in hospitals and/or treatment by physicians and dentists. It is argued that in the absence of relevant consent legislation, psychologists have both a legal and an ethical responsibility to determine their minor clients' capacity to consent. Revisions to the existing Code of Ethics that recognize the potential capacity of minors to consent are discussed.One of the most difficult legal and ethical issues faced by health professionals is that of the minor who seeks treatment without parental consent. Equally difficult, from both a legal and an ethical perspective, are the issues of treating a child against the child's wishes, or voluntarily committing a child who does not want to be committed. At present Canada has no uniform law of consent; the onus is thus placed upon the provider of services to determine whether a child has the capacity to consent. In the present paper, the rights of children will be considered, children's legal and developmental competence to consent to treatment will be explored, and the ethical issues associated with treating minors will be addressed.Historically, the courts respected the rights of parents to exercise control over their children's activities, welfare and destiny (Weithorn, 1983). It was assumed that parents were the natural advocates for their children and would, in most instances, act in their best interest (Landau, 1986). Presumed by law to lack the cognitive ability and capacity of adults, children were denied the rights accorded to adults, and instead were afforded special protection by the State. In situations in which parents abused their parental rights, the State was prepared to intervene to supervise and, if necessary, remove a child from his/her parents. Thus, both parents and the State exercised control over children; at no point in this process was the child's right to separate consultation or representation considered.Early in the seventies the focus of the children's rights movement shifted from an emphasis on protection and nurturance rights to a consideration of self - determination rights (Hart, 1991; Margolin, 1978). Children's rights activists argued that children should be afforded the same constitutional guarantees as adults including, in certain instances, the right to act independently of parental control and/or authority (Hart, 1991; Mulvey, Reppucci & Weithorn, 1984). Considerable constitutionally based litigation followed, with the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately extending constitutional protections to children as individuals, and subsequently recognizing children's rights to treatment and privacy (Hart, 1991; Mulvey et al., 1984).Children and the Canadian Charter of Rights and FreedomsCanadian courts have only recently begun to address the issue of children's rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). Drafted explicitly to protect individuals from unjustified discrimination or unwarranted state intrusion in their lives, the Charter is considered the supreme law of Canada (s. …

The Rights of Patients in Europe: A Comparative Study

Abstract: Part 1 Patients' rights: General trends Two kinds of rights and legislative options Legal basis. Part 2 Consent: Legal status Exceptions Discussion. Part 3 Information: Nature of the right Exceptions Discussion. Part 4 Access to medical records: Nature of the right Exceptions Discussion. Part 5 Privacy and protection of data: Nature of the right Access to data by third parties Transmission of data for research Discussion. Part 6 Secrecy: Nature of the right Exceptions Discussion. Part 7 Special categories of patients: Minors Incompetent adults Mental patients Subjects of research Discussion. Part 8 Promotion and protection of patients' rights: Complaint procedures Patient participation Ethics committees Discussion. Part 9 Enforcement of Patients' rights in formal proceedings: Civil or common law Penal law Administrative law Disciplinary law Discussion. Part 10 Conclusion: Continuation of trends Emergence of new rights International developments.

Russian Law:The End of the Soviet System and the Role of Law

Abstract: Preliminary Observations. Part I: The Soviet System. Part II: The Legal System. The Constitutional Order: from the U.S.S.R. to the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Economic System: from Plan to Market. The Social System. Part III: Legislation. Bibliographical Note. Index.

Mabo : a judicial revolution : the Aboriginal land rights decision and its impact on Australian law

Abstract: ForewordThe Right Honourable Sir Harry Gibbs GCMG AC KBEformerly Chief Justice of the High Court of AustraliaMany decisions of the High Court have resulted in controversy, but few, if any, have given rise to such a diversity of responses, ranging from euphoria to deep anxiety, as Mabo v. Queensland.The case raises a number of questions of great public importance. Did the Court carry judicial activism too far in departing from principles that were thought to have been settled for well over a century, on the ground that those principles were contrary to international standards and the fundamental values of the common law? In doing so, the Court applied what some of its members perceived to be current values and the further question arises whether in fact those values are widely accepted in the community and whether, assuming that they are, it is right to apply contemporary standards to overturn rules formulated at a time when community values were not necessarily the same. These issues become all the more significant if the decision has a wider operation than merely in relation to the title to, and use of, land and if it provides authority for the acceptance of Aboriginal customary law in relation to other matters - in respect of crime for instance. The further questions arise whether the decision casts any doubt on the rights of such persons as pastoral lessees, holders of mining leases and occupation licences and trustees of public reserves and whether the Crown is able to recover for itself, or provide for others, the unencumbered possession, occupation, use or enjoyment of lands long believed to be Crown lands without payment of compensation to persons not yet identified. A final question, of a practical, or perhaps moral, rather than a legal kind, is whether on the whole it will prove more beneficial for the Aboriginal people that they should be provided with what may be an uncertain basis for making legal claims which are likely to result in protracted controversy and litigation, rather than leaving it to the political process to do justice to them.The authors of this special edition of the University of Queensland Law Journal have provided a comprehensive and balanced discussion of these important issues. The edition is to be welcomed as a valuable contribution to this important subject.There is one matter which has puzzled me a little. In the judgments in Mabo, and in much public discussion which has followed, there are frequent references to the doctrine of terra nullius, which the Court is said to have rejected. The question whether land was terra nullius is relevant at international law in deciding whether a state has acquired sovereignty by attempted occupation. So far as I am aware, it was not the question asked at common law to determine whether a colony, admittedly under the sovereignty of Great Britain, was acquired by settlement. Indeed theexpression ‘terra nullius' seems to have been unknown to the common law. I have found no trace of it in legal dictionaries ranging from Cowel’s Interpreter (1701 ed.) to Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary (1986 ed.). It is not mentioned in Tarring’s Law relating to the Colonies (1913 ed.) which in its day was regarded as authoritative. It may have been thought that the expression was synonymous with the common law rule that if Englishmen establish themselves in ‘an uninhabited or barbarous country’ the colony will be regarded as acquired by settlement but that ignores the fact that it was enough to satisfy the common law that the land was ‘barbarous’, by which was meant not under civilised government. Australia was certainly not unoccupied in 1788 but it is another thing to say that the social organisation of the Aboriginal inhabitants was of a kind which the nations of Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries recognised as civilised. Of course, the High Court understood the full extent of the common law principles but public understanding is not assisted when those principles are described by a phrase which is misleading and perhaps emotive.

Between Civil and Religious Law: The Plight of the Agunah in American Society

Abstract: Preface The Nature of the Problem: Basic Dimensions and Contours Halachic Responses The Use of Contract Law (I): Express or Implied Promises to Execute a Get or Submit to Rabbinic Jurisdiction The Use of Contract Law (II): Conditional Releases and Support Obligations Interjurisdictional and Comparative Law Aspects of Civil Enforcement The New York Get Law: Permissible Accommodation or Unconstitutional Establishment Tort Law Theories Current Developments in Church-State Law and Their Impact on the Agunah Problem Conclusion Appendices Case Supplement Selected Bibliography Table of Cases Table of Statutes and Regulations Index

The Reception of Canon Law and Civil Law in the Common Law Courts before 1600

Abstract: English common law practitioners and judges borrowed much of the conceptual structure for their body of legal knowledge from the legal culture of continental Europe over the centuries. Their surviving writings show a marked increase in the use of Roman legal classifications in the century before 1600: public and private, criminal and civil, real and personal, property and possession, contract and delict, among other examples.1 Those who perpetuated the learning of the English royal courts in the sixteenth century had begun fitting it into a framework borrowed from the two great bodies of 'learned law' taught in the universities of Europe: civil (Roman) law and canon law. Common lawyers expressed the need for an 'institutes' of English law, a written introductory work that would survey the whole of the common law in its main classifications, comparable to Justinian's Institutes of Roman law (533 AD) and Giovanni Paolo Lancelotti's Institutes of canon law (1563). In the decades after 1600, such institutes of common law began to appear.2 This paper investigates the common lawyers' attitudes towards canon law and civil law' in the period from 1300 to 1600. How much canon law and civil law did

Constitutional Law: Feminist Critiques of the Public/Private Distinction.

Abstract: Part of the Symposium on the State Action Doctrine. Presented to the Section on Constitutional Law at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools in San Francisco in January, 1993.

`That sole and despotic dominion': Slaves, wives, and game in Blackstone's Commentaries

Abstract: IN THE LANDMARK SOMERSET CASE OF 1772, an archaic notion of inalienable property helped produce a popular rhetoric of inalienable liberty. While Lord Chief Justice Mansfield was popularly understood to have freed all the slaves in England through his ruling in this case, he himself repeatedly insisted that he had merely prohibited sending slaves abroad for sale. Behind this confusion lies the fact that to Mansfield and his court, James Somerset was neither an autonomous individual nor a piece of merchandise. Although these two alternatives may adequately describe the world of commercial relations, the common law traditionally offered a third option in a collection of persons who were also property, the objects of a personal dominion that did not involve commercial exchange. Mansfield drew on this tradition in trying to determine how far slavery was sanctioned by positive law in England. While Mansfield is famous for adapting common-law principles to accommodate newer commercial practices, his inability to control the meaning of his ruling in the Somerset case reflects some of the tensions implicit in England's transformation to a commercial society. By examining the encounter between the common law and West Indian slavery in Mansfield's court and in William Blackstone's influential Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69), we will explore the continuing and paradoxical importance of inalienable property, an idea of property defined by its very incompatibility with the marketplace, to an increasingly commercial society.

Francis Bacon: History, Politics and Science, 1561–1626

Abstract: Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. Two programmes: know thyself and know the universe of nature 3. Knowledges are as pyramids, whereof history is the basis - history civil - this latter extended to describe and to include the Common Law of England 4. Logic - idols of the mind - rhetoric 5. Policy: a great part of philosophy - Bacon's engagements of policy 6. Morality and policy I 7. Morality and policy II 8. Morality and policy III 9. Morality and policy IV 10. Civil history of letters - civil history mixed 11. Civil history of the reign of King Henry the 7th 12. Aims and claims - but no metaphysics of nature 13. No metaphysics of nature - civil history supplies Bacon's masculine birth of time 14. Bacon and his markers I 15. Bacon and his markers II Notes Index.