Eine tiefgreifende Reform des zentralen Kodifikationswerks lädt zu einer Grundlagendiskussion ein. Damit Gesetzesänderungen die erwünschten Erfolge zeitigen, bedarf es der Rückbesinnung auf den bestehenden Rechtsbestand. Überlieferte Institute und Begriffe, die im Alltag der Rechtsanwendung bzw. Gesetzesauslegung unkritisch als selbstverständlich wahrgenommen werden, erscheinen bei Reformprojekten plötzlich problematisch. Zahlreiche Entwürfe, die heute die existierenden Formen des juristischen Denkens de lege ferenda in Frage stellen und eine Rechtfertigung von jenen herausfordern, die möglicherweise Bedenken gegen Reformen hegen, belegen oft mangelnde Einsicht in die historischen und dogmatischen Grundlagen der betroffenen Rechtsordnung und Rechtstradition. Im Rahmen der umfassenden Reform des russischen Zivilrechts betreffen viele Änderungsvorschläge das allgemeine Schuldrecht. So sind etwa der Inhalt des Schuldverhältnisses, seine Systematisierung nach dem Entstehungsgrund und sein Anwendungsbereich ebenso sowie…

Law transfers often have not been successful because they didn’t fit with the local legal culture. Of course, such local legal cultures may be stronger in some areas, such as family law, than in others,such as air traffic regulation. In my lecture I will study the effect of legal transfers from Europe to Africa in the area of family law, as this is the area of law which is generally considered to be the most closely linked with local cultures. Examples will be drawn from several African countries, with an emphasis on Nigerian law.

In the post-industrial era ever more goods, services, persons and capital cross national borders. Business organizations – companies, corporate groups and state-owned enterprises – “enter” and “exit” states offering goods and services according to their business needs. Each of these requires coordination of the legal systems in which the various activities take place, in order to inspire confidence that an activity undertaken in the territory of one country will not be frustrated in another. The presentation will explore the coordinating role of private international law, on an international level as well as within each national system. The legislature has to take account of cross-border effects of its legislation also when enacting statutes that, on their face, seem to concern purely…

Contemporary accounts of corporate legal evolution view lawmakers as highly responsive to the economic interests of both pressure groups and markets. Through this lens law is understood to be the product of pressures exerted by managers, investors, institutional shareholders and the Federal Government, and the incentives of state lawmakers to accommodate the interests of these pressure groups. This view dominates the current understanding of corporate legal evolution in the United States and is becoming highly influential in comparative accounts of corporate legal variation. This lecture sounds a note of objection: it argues that the disciplinary pendulum has swung too far toward external accounts of legal evolution and too far away from internal accounts of legal change, which view the path…

This lecture addresses the recognition of same-sex marriage in both private international law and interstate Full Faith and Credit and conflict of laws principles. It will compare the American position under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) with the approach followed in other jurisdictions. It will review the American concept of federalism in marriage regulation, and it will consider the relevance for interjurisdictional marriage recognition of the significance of the meaning of marriage.

As the result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, new independent states were formed on European territory: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine. This served as an impetus to extensive law reforms in these countries. Family law reform was a constituent part of this revision. It had to be adapted to the new social and economic realities, which were brought to these countries together with tremendous political changes. In the former USSR, the Soviet republics did not have a lot of freedom in designing their own family laws; all the codes on marriage and the family were practically the same, being based on the Fundamentals of the Legislation of the USSR and…

The non-retroactivity of crimes and punishments has become a rule of customary international law. How it did so is an interesting and complex story about the use of comparative law in the making of international law. This rule of international human rights law can be demonstrated as rigorously from practice and opinio juris as any other rule of customary international law. It is sometimes said that less evidence of state practice is necessary to treat an international human right as customary international law. Rules of human rights law, however, are far safer and more secure if grounded in practice as well as opinio juris. Legality is an excellent tool for making such a demonstration of technique in human rights law.…