Routledge Studies in Comparative Legal History – serie

This book provides a legal historical insight into colonial laws on enslavement and the plantation system in the British West Indies. The volume is a work of comparative legal history of the English-speaking Caribbean which concentrates on how the laws of England served to catalyse the slavery laws and also legislation pertaining to post-emancipation societies. The book illustrates how these “borrowed” laws from England not only developed colonial slavery laws within the English-speaking Caribbean but also inspired the slavery codes of a number of North American plantation systems. The cusp of the work focuses on the interconnectivities among the English-speaking slave holding Atlantic and how persons, free and unfree, moved throughout the system and brought laws with them which greatly affected the various enslaved societies.The book will be essential reading for students and researchers interested in colonial slavery, Caribbean studies and Black and Atlantic history.

This book provides a legal historical insight into colonial laws on enslavement and the plantation system in the British West Indies. The volume is a work of comparative legal history of the English-speaking Caribbean which concentrates on how the laws of England served to catalyse the slavery laws and also legislation pertaining to post-emancipation societies. The book illustrates how these “borrowed” laws from England not only developed colonial slavery laws within the English-speaking Caribbean but also inspired the slavery codes of a number of North American plantation systems. The cusp of the work focuses on the interconnectivities among the English-speaking slave holding Atlantic and how persons, free and unfree, moved throughout the system and brought laws with them which greatly affected the various enslaved societies.The book will be essential reading for students and researchers interested in colonial slavery, Caribbean studies and Black and Atlantic history.

Modern legal history is increasingly interested in exploring the development of legal systems from novel and nuanced approaches. This edited collection harnesses the lesser-researched perspectives of the impact of global and imperial factors on the development of law. It is argued that to better understand these timely discussions, we must understand the process and significance of colonisation itself. The volume brings together experts in the field of law and history to explore the ways in which law and lawyers contributed to the expansion of the British Empire, and the ways in which the Empire influenced the Metropole. The book sheds new light on the role of the law and legal actors during the pivotal centuries that saw the establishment of the Empire. Exploring such topics as Atlantic relations, the impact of British jurists upon Indian law, and the development of the law settler colonies, this collection reveals some of the lesser-known intersections between law, history, and empire. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in legal history, comparative history, equity and trusts, contract law, the legal profession, slavery, and the British Empire.

Modern legal history is increasingly interested in exploring the development of legal systems from novel and nuanced approaches. This edited collection harnesses the lesser-researched perspectives of the impact of global and imperial factors on the development of law. It is argued that to better understand these timely discussions, we must understand the process and significance of colonisation itself. The volume brings together experts in the field of law and history to explore the ways in which law and lawyers contributed to the expansion of the British Empire, and the ways in which the Empire influenced the Metropole. The book sheds new light on the role of the law and legal actors during the pivotal centuries that saw the establishment of the Empire. Exploring such topics as Atlantic relations, the impact of British jurists upon Indian law, and the development of the law settler colonies, this collection reveals some of the lesser-known intersections between law, history, and empire. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in legal history, comparative history, equity and trusts, contract law, the legal profession, slavery, and the British Empire.

This book explores the historical foundations of holding public authorities accountable for their acts, and discusses how and why the idea that the state should or should not be held liable became established in three significant jurisdictions. The issue of state liability for legislative acts is considered one of the most difficult and controversial problems in jurisprudence. This book analyses the development of concepts and institutions of liability for the acts of legislator pertaining to the general principles of state liability until the mid-20th century in the leading European legal systems: Germany, France and Great Britain. It is shown that, in contrast to the prevailing conviction, the lack of liability for law-making instruments was not an unassailable dogma, and that questions as to whether such liability was possible were being asked from the Middle Ages onwards. The book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers in the areas of Constitutional Law, Public Law, History of Law, History of Legal and Political Thought, Philosophy of Law, and Comparative Legal Studies.

This book explores the historical foundations of holding public authorities accountable for their acts, and discusses how and why the idea that the state should or should not be held liable became established in three significant jurisdictions. The issue of state liability for legislative acts is considered one of the most difficult and controversial problems in jurisprudence. This book analyses the development of concepts and institutions of liability for the acts of legislator pertaining to the general principles of state liability until the mid-20th century in the leading European legal systems: Germany, France and Great Britain. It is shown that, in contrast to the prevailing conviction, the lack of liability for law-making instruments was not an unassailable dogma, and that questions as to whether such liability was possible were being asked from the Middle Ages onwards. The book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers in the areas of Constitutional Law, Public Law, History of Law, History of Legal and Political Thought, Philosophy of Law, and Comparative Legal Studies.

One of the first to provide a socio-legal comparative history of under-studied or ignored Jewish attempts in the 1930s "Anglosphere" to counter the rise in fascist and Nazi antisemitism, this book examines the ways in which Jewish individuals and organized communal bodies in the mid-to-late 1930s sought to counter this increasing antisemitic violence, physical and verbal, by using the law against their fascist and Nazi attackers. This is the first study to explore how Jews in these countries organized themselves, brought their oppressors to court, while seeking to convince their governments that an attack on Jews was a threat to the social order. The book analyzes the networks of knowledge and the personal relationships between and among key actors and institutions of the "Antisemitic International." Nazi "nationalists" always participated in networks that transcended borders. Case studies from Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, illustrate the ways in which different mechanisms of Jewish resistance were deployed throughout the mid-to-late 1930s. They embody significant concerns about the "turn to law" and the importance of litigation and legislation. Grounded in original archival research on three continents, the book examines the ways in which professional legal discourse about public order and democratic citizenship proffered by Jewish communities and individual Jews was countered by their Nazi opponents with legal and political arguments about "truth," "persecution," and Jewish perfidy. The book will be of interest to students, academics, and researchers working in the areas of Legal History, History, Jewish Studies, the study of Antisemitism, and the History of the far right, fascism and Nazism.

One of the first to provide a socio-legal comparative history of under-studied or ignored Jewish attempts in the 1930s "Anglosphere" to counter the rise in fascist and Nazi antisemitism, this book examines the ways in which Jewish individuals and organized communal bodies in the mid-to-late 1930s sought to counter this increasing antisemitic violence, physical and verbal, by using the law against their fascist and Nazi attackers. This is the first study to explore how Jews in these countries organized themselves, brought their oppressors to court, while seeking to convince their governments that an attack on Jews was a threat to the social order. The book analyzes the networks of knowledge and the personal relationships between and among key actors and institutions of the "Antisemitic International." Nazi "nationalists" always participated in networks that transcended borders. Case studies from Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, illustrate the ways in which different mechanisms of Jewish resistance were deployed throughout the mid-to-late 1930s. They embody significant concerns about the "turn to law" and the importance of litigation and legislation. Grounded in original archival research on three continents, the book examines the ways in which professional legal discourse about public order and democratic citizenship proffered by Jewish communities and individual Jews was countered by their Nazi opponents with legal and political arguments about "truth," "persecution," and Jewish perfidy. The book will be of interest to students, academics, and researchers working in the areas of Legal History, History, Jewish Studies, the study of Antisemitism, and the History of the far right, fascism and Nazism.

The culture of the ius commune has been a unifying element of European and Western legal civilization. As shown by several recent studies, the influence of ius commune extended much farther than its traditional core area. This volume discusses the expansion and changes of ius commune in three significant corners of Europe, which in the classical narrative either totally or partially were left out of the picture: England, Scandinavia, and Venice. The study goes beyond the traditional question of the influence of ius commune in comparing the different constellations of normativity and legal pluralism in these regions. It investigates how not only ius commune but also other forms of normativity – such as customary law, written norms, and legal practice – were used and applied, and how they circulated. The approach helps create new narratives as to how the relationship between centers and peripheries in Europe evolved in the early modern period. These new narratives are built from bottom to top; thus, they are based on concrete source information, and they focus on the learned legal systems and their connection to the local legal sources. The collection further looks into the circulation of professors and doctors, students, and legal texts, starting from the idea that a theoretical understanding of the forms of normativity can emerge only through concrete, multidisciplinary research recognizing the tensions between global legal unification and differentiation. The book will be essential reading for researchers and academics in Legal History, Law and Religion, Comparative Legal Studies, and Early Modern History.Chapter 10 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

This collection explores prefaces, prologues, paratexts, and other types of framing devices. Across world history, these devices have introduced the law, articulated its context and audience, identified the basis of legal and moral authority, critiqued existing conditions, or even tried to "restore" something that never was. Scribes, lawmakers, and legal theorists also used frames to position the law in time and space, purporting to define populations and their identities. Despite the ubiquity and complexity of these phenomena, few studies have drawn out methods for studying their role in constructing, fortifying, or reimagining legal frameworks within legal cultures or traditions. This volume offers new ways to consider the significance of framing apparatuses regarding how and why they are created, remembered, forgotten, utilized, and recovered within legal traditions. The studies range from the ancient world to the modern nation-state system, aiming to explore the intersections and collisions between juridical and political interpretation practices.The book will be of interest to academics and researchers in the areas of legal history, comparative law, legal cultures and traditions, legal theory, jurisprudence, constitutional law and legislative drafting.

The separation of powers produced by the Enlightenment period reinforced the myth of the “perfection of the law”, with criminal law being dependent on the principle of legality. Demonstrating that this principle has not fundamentally altered judges' methods of interpretation and decision-making, this collective volume explores the role of case law in the making of modern criminal law from the late 19th century to the end of the 20th century. It enables us to gauge the influence of case law developed and to assess the extent to which it contributed to major criminal law decisions and the emergence of model criminal codes.The book takes a comparative view across various European and American jurisdictions and offers an overview of European civil law traditions along with comparisons from the Americas. The focus is on Western legal historiography, which has hitherto been notably under-researched. The chronological point of departure is marked by the creation of the Supreme Court and the cassation in each jurisdiction. Each chapter contains a short introduction to the role of jurisprudence in the making of criminal law from the 19th century onwards in that jurisdiction, followed by an exploration of the contribution of the legal doctrine of the Supreme Court in the making or development of a particular criminal offence or institution.The book will be of interest to scholars and historians working or teaching in the areas of legal history, comparative legal history, criminal law and comparative law. It will also be of use to scholars interested in the study of law in different socio-cultural contexts.