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Comparative Legal Tradition Course Overview
This
course traces the comparative historical development of both private and
public law, from the oldest legal civilizations (cuneiform and Egyptian law),
up to ancient, medieval and modern legal traditions. The major objective is
to enable a proper and in-depth understanding of the dynamic of earlier and
contemporary legal systems, based upon the constant interaction with the
society and other legal systems. This goal could be reached only through a
deep and historical insight in the complex process of lawmaking and the
evolution of law. Along with the macro-comparative approach, this course
analyses specific significant legal notions and institutions, developing and
changing gradually through the course of time. One can properly interpret
them today only through recognizing their compound historical legal
background. This is why legal history and the comparative method are to be
used as inescapable tools in proper interpretation and understanding of
present-day legal systems. Otherwise, they would have been viewed in a vacuum
and as non-dynamic, petrified legal beings, without their own past and
future, engendering a simplified and false image of law. This
course stresses, in particular, the European legal traditions and major legal
families being born in Europe throughout centuries. But it also encompasses
the legal traditions, which derived from it (such as the American legal
system), as well as those which have affected it (oriental and the Islamic
legal traditions). The overview of European legal tradition starts with the
ancient Greek and Hellenistic legal civilizations, founding there many modern
legal and political concepts. Particular attention is paid to the Roman law,
principally in connection with its influence on medieval Byzantine, German
and Canon Law tradition. Among medieval legal families, a significant place
is reserved to treat origins of the Islamic legal tradition and the English
common law. However,
particular attention in this course is paid to the consequences of different
legal traditions emerging in the modern legal systems and in their mutual
connections. A particular place in the course is reserved for the American
legal and political tradition. It is how common law and civil law traditions
are viewed comparatively, as well as differences and similarities between
their own constituting elements (such as the English and American, or German
and French legal traditions). In that context a number of modern civil
codifications are focused (particularly French Code Civil, Austrian, German
and Swiss Civil Codes, etc.), as well as historical development and
traditions of modern political institutions as of a framework for the
development of legal systems (particularly in England, the U.S., France,
Switzerland, etc.). The course takes shortly into account the Socialist legal
tradition as an important legal family of the 20th century. It ends with an
analysis of contemporary processes in comparative law, detecting the actual
global reach of legal families, influence of legal imperialism and legal
transplants in the modern legal tradition, and in particularly with an
overview of European integrations and harmonization of the EU law. Belgrade
Sima Avramovic |
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Copyright 2008, Sima
Avramovic. All rights reserved. Edited
by Viktor
Milosavljevic (alan.watson@ius.bg.ac.yu) |
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