ARTICLES WANTED: Comparative Legal History, the official journal of the European Society for Comparative Legal History

Articles are being sought for publication in Comparative Legal History. The journal is published by Taylor & Francis (UK), both online and in print, twice a year:

 

Articles … explore both internal legal history (doctrinal and disciplinary developments in the law) and external legal history (legal ideas and institutions in wider contexts). Rooted in the complexity of the various Western legal traditions worldwide, the journal will also investigate other laws and customs from around the globe. Comparisons may be either temporal or geographical and both legal and other law-like normative traditions will be considered. Scholarship on comparative and trans-national historiography, including trans-disciplinary approaches, is particularly welcome.

Comparative Legal History is the official journal of the European Society for Comparative Legal History (ESCLH). The Society’s membership fees include a subscription to the journal.

The Editors welcome scholarly submissions in the English language:

To submit an article, please contact Articles Editor Heikki Pihlajamäki (heikki.pihlajamaki@helsinki.fi). The optimal length for articles is between 7500 to 15000 words, including footnotes. All articles are submitted to double blind peer review.

To propose a review, please contact Reviews Editor Agustín Parise (agustin.parise@maastrichtuniversity.nl). Book reviews will generally range from 1500 to 2500 words. Review articles will also be considered.

Potential contributors should pay special attention to the ‘Instructions for Authors’. In particular, contributors whose first language is not English should have their papers edited by native Anglophone scholars in advance of their submission to ensure a clear presentation of their ideas and an accurate appraisal of their work.

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The Continuity of Legal Systems in Theory and Practice’ by Benjamin Spagnolo

Hart Publishing is delighted to announce the publication of

‘The Continuity of Legal Systems in Theory and Practice’ by Benjamin Spagnolo

We are pleased to offer you 20% discount on the book

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The Continuity of Legal Systems in Theory and Practice

by Benjamin Spagnolo

The Continuity of Legal Systems in Theory and Practice examines a persistent and fascinating question about the continuity of legal systems: when is a legal system existing at one time the same legal system that exists at another time?

The book's distinctive approach to this question is to combine abstract critical analysis of two of the most developed theories of legal systems, those of Hans Kelsen and Joseph Raz, with an evaluation of their capacity, in practice, to explain the facts, attitudes and normative standards for which they purport to account. That evaluation is undertaken by reference to Australian constitutional law and history, whose diverse and complex phenomena make it particularly apt for evaluating the theories’ explanatory power.

In testing whether the depiction of Australian law presented by each theory achieves an adequate ‘fit’ with historical facts, the book also contributes to the understanding of Australian law and legal systems between 1788 and 2001. By collating the relevant Australian materials systematically for the first time, it presents the case for reconceptualising the role of Imperial laws and institutions during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and clarifies the interrelationship between Colonial, State, Commonwealth and Imperial legal systems both before and after Federation.

Benjamin Spagnolo is the Penningtons Student (Fellow) and Tutor in Law at Christ Church, Oxford.

Please click here to view the table of contents for this book

BOOK DETAILS

October 2015   9781849468831    280pp   Hbk   RSP: £58

20% Discount Price: £46.40

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Judicial Decision-Making in a Globalised World

NEW AS PAPERBACK

Judicial Decision-Making in a Globalised World

A Comparative Analysis of the Changing Practices of Western Highest Courts

Elaine Mak

Reviews

‘...the reviewers strongly suggest the reading of this brilliant book which has all the qualities for becoming a "must-read" for...scholars and practitioners,It is a very meticulous and welcome, but specialized, addition to the globalization of law literature...’

Suzanne Comtois and Mauro Zamboni, Canadian Journal of Administrative Law and Practice

‘…the virtues of this book are many…[it] contributes importantly to what I hope will be a growing field of “trans-Atlantic” studies.,Mak’s comparative study offers a significant contribution to the scholarship on the use of foreign legal materials in legal developments. The close scrutiny of the inner workings of the highest courts also make it a welcome addition to the field of comparative judicial studies. The book certainly merits attention from both lawyers and political scientists.’

Martin Shapiro, Law and Politics Book Review

Why do judges study legal sources that originated outside their own national legal system, and how do they use arguments from these sources in deciding domestic cases? Based on interviews with judges, this book presents the inside story of how judges engage with international and comparative law in the highest courts of the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, France and the Netherlands. A comparative analysis of the views and experiences of the judges clarifies how the decision-making of these Western courts has developed in light of the internationalisation of law and the increased opportunities for transnational judicial communication. While the qualitative analysis reveals the motives that judges claim for using foreign law and the influence of 'globalist' and 'localist' approaches to judging, the author also finds suggestions of a convergence of practices between the courts that are the subject of this study. This empirical analysis is complemented by a constitutional-theoretical inquiry into the procedural and substantive factors of legal evolution, which enable or constrain the development and possible convergence of highest courts' practices. The two strands of the analysis are connected in a final contextual reflection on the future development of the role of Western highest courts.

Elaine Mak is Professor of Empirical Study of Public Law, in particular of Rule-of-Law Institutions, at the Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Click here for more details about the Hart Studies in Comparative Public Law Series