Comparative law is the study of differences and similarities between the law (legal systems) of different countries. More specifically, it involves the study of the different legal "systems" (or "families") in existence in the world, including the common law, the civil law, socialist law, Canon law, Jewish Law, Islamic law, Hindu law, and Chinese law. It includes the description and analysis of foreign legal systems, even where no explicit comparison is undertaken. The importance of comparative law has increased enormously in the present age of internationalism, economic globalization, and democratization.
The origins of modern Comparative Law can be traced back to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1667 in his Latin-language book Nova Methodus Discendae Docendaeque Iurisprudentiae (New Methods of Studying and Teaching Jurisprudence). Chapter 7 (Presentation of Law as the Project for all Nations, Lands and Times) introduces the idea of classifying Legal Systems into several families. A few years later, Leibniz introduced an idea of Language families.
Although every Legal System is unique, Comparative Law through studies of their similarities and differences allows for classification of Legal Systems, wherein Law Families is the basic level of the classification. The main differences between Law Families are found in the source(s) of Law, the role of court precedents, the origin and development of the Legal System. Montesquieu is generally regarded as an early founding figure of comparative law. His comparative approach is obvious in the following excerpt from Chapter III of Book I of his masterpiece, De l'esprit des lois (1748; first translated by Thomas Nugent, 1750):[T]he political and civil laws of each nation ... should be adapted in such a manner to the people for whom they are framed that it should be a great chance if those of one nation suit another.
They should be in relation to the nature and principle of each government: whether they form it, as may be said of politic laws; or whether they support it, as in the case of civil institutions.
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Explores the formal expropriation process, legal framework, compensation methods, and material expropriation conditions in land management and property law.
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the art of justice. State-enforced laws can be made by a group legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes; by the executive through decrees and regulations; or established by judges through precedent, usually in common law jurisdictions.
Civil law is a legal system originating in mainland Europe and adopted in much of the world. The civil law system is intellectualized within the framework of Roman law, and with core principles codified into a referable system, which serves as the primary source of law. The civil law system is often contrasted with the common law system, which originated in medieval England. Whereas the civil law takes the form of legal codes, the law in common law systems historically came from uncodified case law that arose as a result of judicial decisions, recognising prior court decisions as legally binding precedent.
A civil code is a codification of private law relating to property, family, and obligations. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure. In some jurisdictions with a civil code, a number of the core areas of private law that would otherwise typically be codified in a civil code may instead be codified in a commercial code. The history of codification dates back to ancient Babylon. The earliest surviving civil code is the Code of Ur-Nammu, written around 2100–2050 BC.
Traditional media, such as text, image, audio and video, have long been the main media resources and granted full support of standard desktop tools and applications. Interactive rich multimedia documents, adding resources such as video or synthetic animati ...