Legal history

About: Legal history is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 9703 publications have been published within this topic receiving 107226 citations. The topic is also known as: History of Law & history of law.

The Common Law

Abstract: The Common Law is Oliver Wendell Holmes' most sustained work of jurisprudence. In it the careful reader will discern traces of his later thought as found in both his legal opinions and other writings. At the outset of The Common Law Holmes posits that he is concerned with establishing that the common law can meet the changing needs of society while preserving continuity with the past. A common law judge must be creative, both in determining the society's current needs, and in discerning how best to address these needs in a way that is continuous with past judicial decisions. In this way, the law evolves by moving out of its past, adapting to the needs of the present, and establishing a direction for the future. To Holmes' way of thinking, this approach is superior to imposing order in accordance with a philosophical position or theory because the law would thereby lose the flexibility it requires in responding to the needs and demands of disputing parties as well as society as a whole. According to Holmes, the social environment - the economic, moral, and political milieu - that is, the background of legal intervention, alters over time. Therefore, in order to remain responsive to this social environment, the law must change as well. But, of course, the law is also part of this environment and impacts it. There is, then, a continual reciprocity between the law and the social arrangements in which it is contextualized. And, as with the evolution of species, there is no starting over. Rather, in most cases, a judge takes existing legal concepts and principles, as these have been memorialized in legal precedent, and adapts them, often unconsciously, to fit the requirements of a particular case and present social conditions.

What Is International Law

Abstract: International law is a social historical legal tradition that emerged and spread over time to deal with matters between and across polities. This statement may appear obvious, but its full implications point to a thorough reconstruction of theoretical accounts of international law. Part I recounts how Bentham inadvertently created an enduring set of theoretical problems for international law. Part II describes international law as a social historical legal tradition, showing its European origins and diffusion with imperialism, and exposing three slants in international law. Part III broadens the lens to sketch the history of interaction between and across polities and how this has been managed. Part IV details contemporary efforts to deal with this interaction through organizations and transnational law and regulation. With this background in place, Part V elaborates a series of theoretical clarifications. First I unravel several confusions that result from construing state law and international law as parallel categories and conflating system with category. Then I explain why international law is a form of law, although not a unified hierarchical system. Contrary to common perceptions, furthermore, I show that state law and international law are not and have never been separate systems. Finally, I clarify the relationship between international law and transnational law and regulation. Aspects of this theoretical reconstruction may initially appear surprising, but they follow from the insight that international law is a social historical tradition.

An introduction to Islamic law

Abstract: An Introduction to Islamic Law presents a broad account of our present knowledge of the history and outlines of the system of Islamic law. It is not intended in the first place for specialists, although it is hoped that it will attract study to this particularly rewarding branch of Islamic studies, but for students and interested general readers. Islamic law is the key to understanding the essence of one of the great world religions, it still casts its spell over the laws of contemporary Islamic states, and it is in itself a remarkable manifestation of legal thought.