Common law

About: Common law is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 30135 publications have been published within this topic receiving 280701 citations. The topic is also known as: judicial precedent & judge-made law.

The English Common Law concerning Monopolies

Abstract: T HAS BEEN WIDELY BELIEVED that the common law always favored freedom of trade. When English and American judges during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries decided cases against monopolists, engrossers, or restrainers of trade, they thought they were continuing a tradition that reached back into "time of which no man hath memory." The congressmen who drafted and passed the Sherman Antitrust Law thought they were merely declaring illegal offenses that the common law had always prohibited. Those judges and legislators, like other lawyers, must have known, or at least would not have doubted, that the common law rules on these subjects had changed in the course of time, for it is taken as axiomatic that the common law "grows." But it is not always recognized that the common law can change its direction, and without much warning begin to prohibit practices it had formerly endorsed, or to protect arrangements it had earlier condemned. Lawyers do not so readily see that the common law at any given time reflects the economic theories and policies then favored by the community, and may change as radically as those theories and policies. As a result they have too easily accepted the mistaken view that the attitude of the common law toward freedom of trade was essentially the same throughout its history. But the common law did not always defend freedom of trade and abhor monopoly. For a long time it did quite the opposite: it supported an economic order in which the individual's getting and spending were closely controlled by kings, parliaments, and mayors, statutes and customs, and his opportunities limited by the exclusive powers of guilds, 6hartered companies, and patentees. The common law first began to oppose this system of regulation and privilege at the end of the sixteenth century; it did not do so wholeheartedly until the eighteenth century; and by the middle of the nineteenth century, it had again lost its enthusiasm for the task. It would have been surprising if the pattern of development had been different. Changes in the common law are changes in the attitudes of judges and of lawyers; it would have been remarkable if they had persistently opposed monopoly when the rest of the community did not know

Limiting Leviathan: Hobbes on Law and International Affairs

Abstract: Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Law, Morality, and Prudence 2. Social Contract 3. Equity and Justice 4. Concept of Law 5. Fidelity to Law 6. Sovereignty and Artificial Reason 7. Authorization, Joint Action, and Representation 8. Crimes and the International Order 9. Rules of War 10. The Attitude of Pacifism Concluding Thoughts Bibliography

German Administrative Law: In Common Law Perspective

Abstract: in Detail.- 1: Nature, Scope, and Growth of German Administrative Law.- 2: Legislative Powers of the Administration: The Delegated Legislation.- 3: Administrative Powers: Administrative Act.- 4: Administrative Powers: Contracts, Private-Law Acts, Real Acts, and Planning.- 5: General Principles of Judicial Review.- 6: Judicial Review of Discretionary Powers.- 7: Administrative Courts.- 8: Judicial Remedies and Procedure.- 9: Liability of the Public Authorities.- Appendix IV An Illustrative Judgment.- Bibliographical Note.

Legal Change in Africa: Evidence from Oil-related Litigation in Nigeria

Abstract: This article provides a detailed analysis of the nature of legal disputes between oil companies and those affected by oil operations on the ground in Nigeria by focusing on legal change. Our analysis is motivated by the perception of a gap in the literature on legal change in oil-related litigation in Nigeria. We have attempted to fill this gap by examining 68 oil-related court cases. In this context, we are able to show that judicial law-making plays an important role in oil-related litigation in Nigeria. In broader terms, our analysis points to the significance of judicially induced legal change in the development of Common Law rules in Africa. The article is organized as follows. We start with a brief examination of the principles of tort law upon which oil-related litigation is based and the general legal defences employed by oil companies. This is followed by an analysis of legal innovations in oil-related cases and speculations as to why legal change has occurred.

The Prevention Principle in International Environmental Law

Abstract: Prevention is recognized as a cornerstone of international environmental law, but this principle remains abstract and elusive in terms of exactly what is required of states to prevent environmental harm. In this illuminating work, Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli addresses this issue by offering a systematic, comprehensive assessment in which she clarifies the rationale, content, and scope of the prevention principle while also placing it in a wider legal context. The book offers a detailed analysis of treaty law, custom codification works, and case law before culminating in a conceptualization of prevention based on three definitional traits: 1. Its anticipatory rationale; 2. Its due diligence content; and 3. Its wide spatial scope to protect the environment as a whole. This book should be read by anyone seeking to understand the evolving principle of prevention in international environmental law, and how it increasingly shares common ground with reparation in the arena of compliance control.