Showing papers on "Principal (commercial law) published in 1980"

International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects

Abstract: The exploration and use of the space environment, consisting of outer space per se, the moon, and celestial bodies, may result in harm to persons and to property. International law and municipal law have focused on rules allowing for the payment of money damages for harm caused by space objects and their component parts, including the “payload.” Both forms of law have accepted the basic proposition that money damages should compensate for harm. Principal attention will be given in this analysis to the kinds of harm caused by space objects that are considered to be compensable under international law at the present time.

Selective Characteristics of Litigation

Abstract: T HIS paper discusses theories of the content of common law rules. Its principal subjects are the general, comprehensive theories of the composite set of common law rules rather than the particularistic theories of small sets of cases that lawyers devise each day to predict judicial decisions. Lawyers may predict with some success the outcome of a dispute from the observation of earlier similar cases, just as today's weather allows a reasonable prediction of tomorrow's. But the "theories" or working hypotheses' upon which such predictions are based do not address either the pattern of the earth's climate or the broader structure of the common law.

Law Professors: A Profile of the Teaching Branch of the legal Profession

Abstract: In the United States, law schools provide the principal route of entry into the legal profession. Indeed, education in a law school is the only experience that virtually all members of the modern legal profession have in common. The gatekeeping function of law schools places the nation's law teachers in a most influential position. Although law professors play a vital role in selecting and molding the members of the profession, little research has been done on them. This article presents the results of the American Bar Foundation's first major study of law teachers. The author finds them to be a most highly credentialed group of lawyers, the overwhelming majority of whom are graduates of a small group of elite law schools. She also finds that possession of a degree from one of these schools appears to be not only highly determinative of who become law teachers but also of the nature of teachers' academic careers.

La preuve devant les tribunaux administratifs et quasi judiciaires

Abstract: Procedure before quasi-judicial boards and tribunals has recently attracted abundant comment as well as some criticism. In administrative law, rules of evidence form an important part of procedure. In this paper, the author first tries to define what are the sources of the law of evidence before quasi-judicial agencies in Quebec : the common law, the two Codes, statutes and regulations. Then follows in two parts an overview of the principal rules that govern the manner in which claims and arguments are brought before tribunals and the extent to which specific provisions or general principles of administrative law allow tribunals themselves to gather evidence required for the purposes of a decision. The paper suggests that administrative justice requires that the tribunal really be « master of the procedure », within the framework of natural justice.