The concept of law: A western transplant?

Theoretical Inquiries in Law

Volumn 10, Issue 2, 2009, Pages

  Halprin, Jean Louis ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 68349128841     PISSN: None     EISSN: 15653404     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. Richard L. Abel, Law as Lag: Inertia as a Social Theory of Law, 80MlCH.L. Rev. 785, 793 (1982); Pierre Legrand, The Impossibility of 'Legal Transplants, ' 4 MAASTRICHT J. EUR. & COMP. L. 111 (1997).
2. DENNIS LLOYD & M.D.A. FREEMAN, INTRODUCTION TO JURISPRUDENCE 40-42 (7th ed. 2005), are opposed to a definition of law suited for a particular use, or to an "essentialist" definition, like Kelsen's normative one, valuable for all legal orders. We would prefer to qualify this second definition as "formalist, " because it does not suppose an "essence" of the content of laws or of legal institutions.
3. HANS KELSEN, GENERAL THEORY OF LAW AND STATE 110-25 (Anders Wedberg trans., 1949).
4. We are not saying that there were only Western states in history, but that colonialism and imperialism have imposed the Western model of the state all over the world.
5. GIANFRANCO POGGI, THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN STATE 60 (1978); David Held, The Development of the Modern State, in FORMATIONS OF MODERNITY 78 (S. Hall & B. Gieben eds., 1992); CHRISTOPHER PIERSON, THE MODERN STATE 31(2004).
6. HERBERT LIONEL ADOLPHUS HART, THE CONCEPT OF LAW 92-94 (1961).
7. Giorgio Camassa, Verschriftung und Veranderung der Gesetze, in RECHTSKODIFIZIERUNG UND SOZIALE NORMEN IM INTERKULTURELLEN VERGLEICH 97 (Hans-Joachim Gehrke ed., 1994).
8. STEPHEN C. TODD, THE SHAPE OF ATHENIAN LAW 294-95 (1993) discusses the process of Nomothesia in the 4th century BC.
9. We use the expression of LOUIS GERNET, DROIT ET INSTITUTIONS EN GRECE ANTIQUE 9 (1982).
10. ALDO SCHIAVONE, IUS. L'INVENZIONEDEL DIRITTOIN OCCIDENTE 5 (2005), alludes to the false extension of the Roman paradigm of law to the Egyptian or Mesopotamian codes of rules. contrary to schiavone, we do not argue that the Romans were the only inventors of law, but only that their concept of law was transplanted to most of the rest of the world.
11. FRANCESCO DE MARTINO, STORIA DELLA CONSTITUZIONE ROMANA 307-08 (1972).
12. CIC. DEREP. 2.63; LIV. 4.1, 4.6; DIG. 1.2.2.4.
13. "in XII tabulis, legem esse ut quodcumque postremum populus iussisset id ius ratumque esset." LIV. 7.17.
14. MICHEL HUMBERT, INSTITUTIONS POLITIQUES ET SOCIALES DE l'ANTIQUITE 262(1989).
15. DIG. 1.4.1.
16. G. INST. 1.1-1.7.
17. JOSEPH MELEZE MODRZEJEWSKI, DROIT IMPERIAL ET TRADITIONS LOCALES DANS l'EGYPTE ROMAINE 384 (1990).
18. ALFREDO MORDECHAI RABELLO, THE JEWS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE: LEGAL PROBLEMS FROM HEROD TO JUSTINIAN 144 (2000).
19. William Seston & Maurice Euzennat, La citoyennete romaine au temps de Marc Aurele et de Commode d'apres la Tabula Banasitana, etude de diplomatique, in COMPTES RENDUS DE l'ACADEMIE DES INSCRIPTIONS ET BELLES LETTRES 317(1961).
20. canon law is, of course, a religious law linked to immutable christian dogmas. But this law is limited to some matters and relatively open to change, with the recognition of the legislative power of the pope and the admission of possible contradictions between the texts, which canonists have to resolve. For example, procedural rules of ecclesiastical courts have changed over time.
21. MAURIZIO LUPOI, THE ORIGINS OF EUROPEAN LEGAL ORDER 25 (A. Belton trans., 2000).
22. PETER WORMALD, THE MAKING OF ENGLISH LAW: KING ALFRED TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY (1999).
23. James Q. Whitman, Western Legal Imperialism: Thinking About the Deep Historical Roots, 10 THEORETiCAL INQUIRIES L. 305 (2009).
24. Jacques Krynen, Voluntas domini Regis in suo regno facit ius. Le Roi de France et la coutume, in EL DRET COMU ICATALUNYA 59 (A. Iglesia Ferreios ed., 1998).
25. HENRY PATRICK GLENN, ON COMMON LAWS 8-29 (2005).
26. In Goa, since the beginning of the16th century, Hindus could be judged by the High Court according to their customs written in a "foral. " LAUREN BENTON, LAW AND COLONIAL CULTURES, LEGAL REGIMES IN WORLD HISTORY 1400-1900, at 116-19(2002).
27. L.J.M. COORAY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LEGAL SYSTEM OF SRI LANKA 141-42(2003).
28. ROBERT W. HEFFNER, CIVIL ISLAM, MUSLIMS AND DEMOCRACY IN INDONESIA 33 (2000); JOHN R. BROWN, ISLAM, LAW AND EQUALITY IN INDONESIA 13 (2003).
29. WERNER F. MENSKI, HINDU LAW: BEYOND TRADITION AND MODERNITY 81-82(2003).
30. Etienne Le Roy, La coutume et la reception des droits romanistes en Afrique Noire, in LA COUTUME, RECUEIL DE LA SOCIETES JEAN BODIN 117 (1990).
31. SALLY FALK MOORE, SOCIAL FACTS AND FABRICATIONS: "CUSTOMARY" LAW IN KILIMANJARO 90 (1981); MARTIN CHANOCK, LAW, CUSTOM AND SOCIAL ORDER: THE COLONIAL EXPERIENCE IN MALAWI AND ZAMBIA 140 (1985); Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa, in THE INVENTION OF TRADITION 254 (Eric Hobsbawm & Terence Ranger eds., 1983).
32. JOHN HAMILTON BAKER, THE LAW'S TWO BODIES: SOME EVIDENTIAL PROBLEMS IN ENGLISH LEGAL HISTORY 3 (2001).
33. For example, the oral law of Lycurgus in Sparta, known through literary sources, was recognized by the city courts and perhaps changed.
34. Brian Tamanaha, An Analytical Map of Social Scientific Approaches to the Concept of Law, 15 O.J.L.S. 501 (1995).
35. EUGEN EHRLICH, FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF LAW 10 (W.L. Moll trans., 2002): legal institutions like marriage, family or ownership did exist outside rules applied by the courts (but are they not examples of social norms rather than legal phenomena?).
36. BRONIOSLAW MALINOWSKI, CRIME AND CUSTOMIN SAVAGE SOCIETY 14-15 (1970). But see E. ADAMSON HOEBEL, THE LAW OF PRIMITIVE MAN 208-09 (1954) (criticizing Malinowski for fusing law and social norm).
37. We disagree with the description of a so-called primitive law consisting only of customs - "including customary law, " writes RICHARD A. POSNER, THE ECONOMICS OF JUSTICE 178 (1981) - and defined as a "complex, slowly changing, highly decentralized system of exact rules, " id. at 146-78.
38. GRAHAM HASSALL &CHERYLL SAUNDER, ASIA-PACIFIC CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEMS173 (2002).
39. Rodolfo Sacco, Legal Formants: A Dynamic Approach to Comparative Law, 39 AM. J. COMP. L. 1, 8 (1991); Rodolfo Sacco, Mute Law, 42 AM. J. COMP. L.455(1995).
40. Martha T. Roth, The Law Collection of King Hammurabi, in LA CODIFICATION DES LOIS DANS l'ANTIQUITE 31 (Edmond Levy ed., 2000) writes that "it is finally a text not a codified body of laws."
41. I RAYMOND WESTBROOK, A HISTORY OF ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN LAW 93, 181, 255, 821 (2003).
42. James Whitley, Cretan Laws and Cretan Literacy, 101 AM. J. ARCHAEOLOGY 635 (1997); MICHAEL GAGARIN & DAVID COHEN, THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO ANCIENT AND GREEK LAW 309 (2005).
43. YONPING LIU, ORIGINS OF CHINESE LAW: PENAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW IN ITS EARLY DEVELOPMENT 202-32 (1998).
44. GEOFFREY MACCORMACK, TRADITIONAL CHINESE PENAL LAW 12-13 (1990).
45. MICHAEL BARRY HOOKER, A CONCISE LEGAL HISTORY OF SOUTH-eAST ASIA 72 (1978): "In South-East Asia the impact of classical Chinese law was almost wholly confined to what is now Vietnam."
46. BRIAN E. MCKNIGHT, LAW AND ORDER IN SUNG CHINA 334 (1992).
47. HENRY PATRICK GLENN, LEGAL TRADITIONS OF tHE WORLD : SUSTAINABLE DIVERSITY IN LAW (2000).
48. Ludo Rocher, Law Books in an Oral Culture: The Indian Dharmasastras, 137 PROC. AM. PHIL. SOC'Y 254 (1993), insists on the contradictions between different rules on the same subject in the so-called laws of Manu, without criteria to choose between these rules by way of recognition or change (there is no explicit or implicit track of change);
49. Richard W. Lariviere, Dharmasastra, Custom, "Real Law"andAprocryphalSmrtis, in RECHT, STAATUND VERWALTUNGIM KLASSISCHEN INDIEN 109 (Bernard Kolver ed., 1997); WERNER F. MENSKI, HINDU LAW, BEYOND TRADITION AND MODERNITY 131 (2003);
50. THE LAW CODE OF MANU, at xxxviii-xli(patrick olivelle ed., 2004).
51. HOOKER, supra note 45, at 110-11;
52. DONALD RICHARD DAVIS, THE BOUNDARIES OF LAW : TRADITION, " CUSTOMS" AND POLITICS IN LATE MEDIEVAL KERALA 83, 119, 149, 204 (2002).
53. Andrew Huxley, The Reception of Buddhist Law in S. E. Asia 200 BCE-1860 CE, in LA RECEPTION DES SYSTEMES JURIDIQUES: IMPLANTATIONET DESTIN 139 (Michelyu Doucet & Jacques vandelinden eds., 1994). This thoroughly documented study is founded upon the (unproved) proposition that no rice plain society could survive without legal rules.
54. JEWISH LAW IN LEGAL HISTORY AND THE MODERN WORLD 79-85 (Bernard S. Jackson ed., 1980) (opposing Canon law with this Roman referent and Jewish law in an "ivory tower").
55. Menachem Elon, The Legal System of Jewish Law, 17 N.Y.U. J. INT'L L. & Pol. 221 (1985);
56. RELIGION, LAW AND TRADITION 152 (Andrew Huxley ed., 2002).
57. NOEL J. COULSON, A HISTORY OF ISLAMIC LAW (1964);
58. YASIN DUTTON, THE ORIGINS OF ISLAMIC LAW, THE QUR'AN, THE MUWATTA' AND MADINIAN AMAL (1999).
59. HAIM GERBER, ISLAMIC LAW AND CULTURE 1600-1840, at 8, 71, 123 (1999).
60. BERNARD G. WEISS, THE SPIRIT OF ISLAMIC LAW 90 (2006).
61. LAWRENCE ROSEN, LAW AS CULTURE 5 (2006).
62. EDWARD W. SAID, ORIENTALISM 121 (1978).
63. ALAN WATSON, SOCIETY AND LEGAL CHANGE 7-8 (2001). ALAN WATSON, LEGAL TRANSPLANTS: AN APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE LAW 128-29 (1993) affirms, to the contrary, that the rule transplanted is often changed.
64. -1MAX WEBER, ECONOMY AND SOCIETY 311-12 (G. Roth & C. Wittich eds. & trans., univ. of cal. press 1978) (1922).
65. DOUGLASS NORTH, INSTITUTIONS, INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE 103 (1980).61 Whitman, supra note 23.