Hosted by the UNSW Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, presented by Professor James Fowkes
This hybrid book discussion will be held in Adrian Cameron Room, Level 2, UNSW Faculty of Law & Justice and online via Teams.
Seminar topic
Lawyers standardly use the legal family distinction between Common law and Civil law as a basic way to understand the legal world. This project aims to ask what, if anything, is meaningful about this distinction if we actually apply it globally – if we really test it out on the 50+ countries of the Common law world, and not on the much smaller (and biased) sample of systems that usually get discussed. Put another way, my question is this: what do we know about a country, anywhere in the world, if we know that it is Common law rather than Civil law? I think there are a few answers, but only a few, and that is what makes a project on this scale both meaningful and feasible. A downside of my question is its continued focus on the two global legal families based in Europe; the upside is that it offers a way to discuss – and to teach – a basic distinction in comparative law in a way that is finally as global as the reality of its use and practice.
An outline of the paper will be circulated a week in advance to those who have registered. Lunch will be provided for those attending in person.
Presenter: Professor James Fowkes studied law in South Africa and the United States, and is currently Professor of Foreign and International Law at the University of Münster, Germany.
Chair: Dr Elisabeth Perham, Co-Director, Comparative Constitutional Law Project, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law