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 nature and sources of the law

Abstract: Part I Nature of the law: legal rights and duties legal persons the State the law the Courts the law of nations jurisprudence statutes judicial precedents judicial precedents in the United States opinions of experts customs morality and equity. Appendices: PII USUS in the later Roman Empire Hereditas Jacens reception of the Roman Law desuetetude of Statutes in the United States.

International Soft Law

Abstract: Although the concept of soft law has existed for years, scholars have not reached consensus on why states use soft law or even whether “soft law” is a coherent analytic category. In part, this confusion reflects a deep diversity in both the types of in ternational agreements and the strategic situations that produce them. In this paper, we advance four complementary explanations for why states use soft law that describe a much broader range of state behavior than has been previously explained. First, and least significantly, states may use soft law to solve straightforward coordination games in which the existence of a focal point is enough to generate compliance. Second, under what we term the loss avoidance theory, moving from soft law to hard law generates higher sanctions that both deter more violations and, because sanctions in the international system are negative sum, increase the net loss to the parties. States will choose soft law when the marginal costs in terms of the expected loss from violations exceed the marginal benefits in terms of deterred violations. Third, under the delegation theory, states choose soft law when they are uncertain about whether the rules they adopt today will be desirable tomorrow and when it is advantageous to allow a particular state or group of states to adjust expectations in the event of changed circumstances. Moving from hard law to soft law makes it easier for such states to renounce existing rules or interpretations of rules and drive the evolution of soft law rules in a way that may be more efficient than formal renegotiation. Fourth, we introduce the concept of international common law (ICL), which we define as a nonbinding gloss that international institutions, such as international tribunals, put on binding legal rules. The theory of ICL is based on the observation that, except occasionally with respect to the facts and parties to the dispute before it, the decisions of international tribunals are nonbinding interpretations of binding legal rules. States grant institutions the authority to make ICL as a way around the requirement that states must consent in order to be bound by legal rules. ICL affects all states subject to the underlying rule, regardless of whether

Transnational Public Law Litigation

Abstract: Several years ago, I called attention to the burgeoning of \"transnational public law litigation\": suits brought in United States courts by individual and governmental litigants challenging violations of international law.' As recent examples of this phenomenon, I included international human rights suits brought by aliens against foreign and United States governments and officials under the Alien Tort Statute,2 as well as actions by foreign governments against individual, American government, and corporate defendants. 3

Languages of Law: From Logics of Memory to Nomadic Masks

Abstract: Preface Acknowledgements 1. Introduction Part I. Memory, Precedent and Writing Systems of Law: 2. A short history of failure: law and criticism 1580-1620 3. The Eucharist and English law: a genealogy of legal presence in the common law tradition 4. Legal writing systems: rhetoric, grammatology and the linguistic injuries of law 5. Contractions: a linguistic philosophy of the postal rule Part II. Language, Image, Sign and Common Law: 6. Modalities of legal annunciation: a linguistics of courtroom speech 7. The enchanted past: a semiotics of common law 8. Law's emotional body: image and aesthetic in the work of Pierre Legendre 9. Pro persona mori: to die for one's mask Bibliography Index.

Elements of War Crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: Sources and Commentary

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Legal value of the elements of crime 3. General Introduction adopted by the PrepCom 4. Introduction to elements of war crimes listed in Art. 8 of the Rome Statute 5. Article 8 Paragraph 2 (a) ICC Statute: Grave Breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions 6. Article 8 Paragraph 2 (b) ICC Statute: Other Serious Violations of the Laws and customs Applicable in International Armed Conflict 7. Article 8 Paragraph 2 (c) ICC Statute: Violations of Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions 8. Article 8 Paragraph 2 (e) ICC Statute: Other Serious Violations of the Laws and Customs Applicable in Armed Conflicts not of an International Character Annexes Table of case law.