Wim Decock - Böcker

To understand the genesis of the modern economy, we must also investigate its normative foundations. More than a century after Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the pursuit of this key methodological intuition remains unfinished. This book revisits the legacy of a neglected protagonist in the history of economic thought: Leonardus Lessius (1554-1623). Lessius' work provides unique insight into the normative roots of modern economic thought. In a context characterised by the globalization of trade, the rise of stock exchanges, and profound political and religious upheavals, merchants, bankers, and princes eagerly sought his advice to navigate the New World. Praised by Joseph A. Schumpeter as a 'father of modern economic analysis', Lessius became known in his own time as the 'Oracle of the Netherlands'. His main treatise, 'On Justice and Law', quickly gained the status of a reference work due to the clarity of its economic observations and Lessius' brilliant mastery of legal and moral reasoning. He offered practical solutions to a wide range of cases of conscience related to speculation, insurance, insider trading, subprime debt, interest-taking, abuse of market power, monopolies, public banks, safe investment vehicles, and many other economic and financial issues. It certainly was not his intention to turn the whole world into a competitive market without any limits as Lessius deplored humanity's inclination to succumb to the 'sacred hunger for gold'. However, he did wish to encourage effort, hard work and clever dealings, thus contributing significantly to the normative justification of modern commerce and finance. In a time marked as much by fierce debates on grace and free will as by doubts about the legitimacy of the first global economy, Lessius offers a glimpse into the interconnectedness between ideas on spiritual salvation and material prosperity.

What impact has Christianity had on law and policies in the Lowlands from the eleventh century through the end of the twentieth century? Taking the gradual 'secularization' of European legal culture as a framework, this volume explores the lives and times of twenty legal scholars and professionals to study the historical impact of the Christian faith on legal and political life in the Low Countries. The process whereby Christian belief systems gradually lost their impact on the regulation of secular affairs passed through several stages, not in the least the Protestant Reformation, which led to the separation of the Low Countries in a Protestant North and a Catholic South in the first place. The contributions take up general issues such as the relationship between justice and mercy, Christianity and politics as well as more technical topics of state-church law, criminal law and social policy.

This book explores the tensions between the religious and legal principles of Islamic finance and Islamic banking in practice. It does not limit itself to a legal discussion and presents a truly interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue between lawyers, theologians, and economists with roots in academia and practice. There is considerable divergence in their evaluation of the status quo and future of Islamic finance.Contributions cover aspects of Islamic finance in theory and practice. It provides insights into the interplay of religion, ethics and finance covering both the Islamic and Christian traditions that sets the scene for Islamic finance in practice: economic technicalities of Islamic banking services, its regulatory aspects, and the complex legal arrangements of Islamic finance in non-Muslim-majority countries. Islamic Finance is a truly international collaboration of outstanding scholars and practitioners in their field that reveals the complexities involved in applying religious principles and legal theory to the daily practice of business and finance.

Das vierbändige „Handbuch zur Geschichte der Konfliktlösung in Europa“ beschäftigt sich mit rechtlichen und außerrechtlichen Wegen der Entscheidung von Konflikten zwischen einzelnen Menschen sowie zwischen Personen und ihren Obrigkeiten.

Das vierbändige Werk „Handbuch zur Geschichte der Konfliktlösung in Europa“ wurde von namhaften internationalen Expertinnen und Experten geschrieben und dient als zentrales Referenzmedium für die historische Dimension aller Formen der Streitentscheidung. Der Aufbau orientiert sich an den vier Epochen Antike, Mittelalter, Frühe Neuzeit und 19./20. Jahrhundert. Zugleich wird eine europäische Perspektive eingenommen, die sich sowohl in den einzelnen Kapiteln als auch in speziellen Länderforschungsberichten niederschlägt. Nach einer Einführung in die jeweilige Epoche werden einerseits Konfliktlösungsmodelle und  -institutionen sowie andererseits Kernfragen und Zentralprobleme behandelt. Rechtshistorische Dokumente runden die Darstellung ab.

The Roman legal tradition is the ancestor of modern contract law but there is no agreement as to how and when a general law of contract emerged. Wim Decock’s thesis is that an important step in this evolution was taken by theologians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They transformed the Roman legal tradition (ius commune) by insisting on the moral foundations of contract law. Theologians emphasized that the enforceability of contracts is based on voluntary consent and that a contract should not enrich one party at another's expense. While their main concern was the salvation of souls, theologians played a key role in the development of a systematic contract law in which the founding principles were freedom and fairness.Theologians and Contract Law is winner of the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Preis 2014 (German Research Foundation) as well as the Raymond Derine Prijs 2012 (Raymond Derine PhD Prize) and the ASL-Prijs Humane Wetenschappen 2012 (ASL Award for Humanities 2012) by the Academische Stichting Leuven. Decock's book is also awarded the "Juristisches Buch des Jahres" (Law book of the year) by Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (47/2013: 3420).