The Paradox of American Critical Legalism

Duncan Kennedy's essay is a reprint from his recently published book. We hope to draw attention to Kennedy's work among students of European integration since we believe his analysis to be relevant both to the specific debate on the impact of European integration upon private law and to comparative legal study in general. European legal scholarship has only recently begun to examine the problems of private legal integration. The late appearance of private law in the integration arena is due to a primarily instrumental understanding and strategic use of law in the European market-building project: only once legal ‘barriers to trade’ were eliminated and national regulatory law replaced by Europeanised norms, did the degree to which the core institutions of ’private‘ law had been (indirectly) affected by the integrationist logic become apparent. Comparative legal research, however, has benefited from this awakening of interest. European Commission projects have widened the scope of and intensified comparative studies in Europe. Equally, experience gained from the ‘Integration Through (Public) Law’ project has led to a new private legal debate on the impact of national traditions, the concept of legal cultures and the social functions of private law. Accordingly, whilst Duncan Kennedy's deliberations on the history of American legal thought and the differences between American and European legal cultures are generally to be commended for their sensitive treatment of the specificities of the civil law system and the common law heritage, they are equally of particular topical concern since in addition to highlighting America's ‘utter faith and utter distrust in law,’ they also investigate the fundamentally different approaches adopted towards ‘the project law’ within each of the member states of the EU. If European private lawyers are to come to terms with the problems of integration and convergence, they must first tackle these deep-seated divergences between their own national legal cultures.     

A European Legal Method? On European Private Law and Scientific Method

This article examines the relationship between European private law and scientific method. It argues that a European legal method is a good idea. Not primarily because it will make European private law scholarship look more scientific, but because a debate on the method of a normative science necessarily has to be a debate on its normative assumptions. In other words, a debate on a European legal method will have much in common with the much desired debate on social justice in European law. Moreover, it submits that, at least after the adoption of the Common Frame of Reference by the European institutions, European contract law can be regarded as a developing multi-level system that can be studied from the inside. Finally, it concludes that the Europeanisation of private law is gradually blurring the dividing line between the internal and external perspectives, with their respective appropriate methods, in two mutually reinforcing ways. First, in the developing multi-level system it is unclear where the external borders of the system lie, in particular the borders between Community law and national law. Second, because of the less formal legal culture the (formerly) external perspectives, such as the economic perspective, have easier access and play an increasing role as policy considerations.     

The European Brotherhood of Lawyers: The Reinvention of Legal Science in the Making of European Private Law

Against the historical backdrop of the codification debate in nineteenth century Germany, this article traces the reassertion of "legal science" as an autonomous source of European legal integration in current legal and political discourse about the harmonization of European private law. The article argues that a grasp of widely shared ideas about the role and function of legal science and legal scientists is vital both toward an understanding of the extraordinary impact of the academic project of a European civil code on legal and political discourse in the Union in particular, and toward furthering the theory of legal fields in general.     

Contract Governance in the EU: Conceptualising the Relationship between Investor Protection Regulation and Private Law

The instrumental use of private law, in particular contract law, by the EU raises a complex issue concerning the relationship between contract‐related regulation and traditional private law and underlines the need for conceptualising the interplay between the two from the contract governance perspective. The present article aims to apply this new analytical approach in the investment services field where there is considerable tension between the EU investor protection regulation embodied in the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID I and MiFID II) and national private laws. The article explores various models of relationship between investor protection regulation and traditional private law within a multi‐level EU legal order, considering the strengths and weaknesses of each field in pursuing public and private interests involved in financial contracting. This analysis also offers some lessons for the broader narrative of how European integration in regulated areas dominated by public supervision and enforcement could proceed.     

The Impact of European Integration on Private Law: Reductionist Perceptions, True Conflicts and a New Constitutional Perspective

If private law is defined simply as a matter of core areas such as substantive contract, torts, property or family law, it may be doubted whether European law has significantly affected national private law systems; or conversely, whether national private law is relevant to European integration. However, this paper argues that such conclusions are misleading: while there have been very few European interventions into the core areas of civil codes or the common law, the integration process has impacted forcefully upon deeper structures of national legal systems. Challenging the institutional embeddedness of national private law, European primary and regulatory law has remodelled (public) concepts of private autonomy, the realm of private governance and the social responsibility of private actors. How then to present and evaluate this indirect impact? Drawing upon concrete examples, this paper seeks first to understand this European challenge to the interdependence of national private law, borrowing from political science's analytical tool of multi-level governance to highlight the complex interrelations between European rights and regulatory law and national private law; and secondly attempts actively to assess the legitimacy of the impact of integration upon private law with the aid of the explicitly normative theory of deliberative supranationalism. However, precisely because Europe remains in a state of flux, and dependent upon contingent political processes, no final conclusions are drawn: as is the case with so many areas subject to integrationist logic, the contours of the ‘new European private law’ cannot be laid down in advance, and are instead a long and weary matter of cooperation and fine-tuning between national and European judiciaries.     

A Shift in Focus: Systematisation in European Private Law through EU Law

The discourse on the Europeanisation of private law appears gradually to be moving into new territory in which the central debate on convergence of private laws in Europe makes place for structural questions on private law development in a multi‐level European legal order. With the realisation that private law is and will remain complementary regulated at EU level and in national laws, a re‐orientation is called for that, in the words of Micklitz, ‘allows one to determine which norms shall be elaborated and enforced at what level and by whom’. This article accepts that such a re‐orientation is needed in relation to substance, process, instruments and enforcement; a more fundamental question needs to be addressed, however, in order to ensure coherence in the development of private law in Europe. As can be gleaned from existing practice in EU consumer law, competition law, and financial market regulation, a deeply engrained tension between market integration and protectionist policies in Community law has resulted in incoherent regulation at EU level, which filters through into national legal systems. This puts at risk fundamental values of private law, such as certainty and fairness. A solution for this is proposed by shifting the focus from national private laws to the political and doctrinal structure of EU private law, and the normative framework it provides. General principles of EU private law, it is argued, could and should provide a counterweight to the problem of conflicting policies and set out a guideline for the future development of European private law.     

The public interest dimension of the single market for data: Public undertakings as a model for regulating private data sharing

Data plays a crucial role for society. Accordingly, building a ‘single market for data’ by increasing the availability of public and private data ranks high on the EU policy agenda. But when advancing legal data sharing regimes, there is an inevitable need to balance public and private interests. While the European Commission continues to push for more binding rules on data sharing between private businesses, public undertakings are already covered by mandatory rules. Exploring how the law addresses their data offers valuable lessons on the reconciliation of market reasoning with the public interest. In particular, this article inquires into the recast Open Data and Public Sector Information Directive, the Data Governance Act, and different national rules which regulate access to and re-use of public undertakings' data. It identifies five striking characteristics and discusses their potential and limitations for regulating data sharing by private undertakings. The implications serve as a guidepost for advancing the wider debate on building a single market for data in the EU. Some of them are already reflected in the upcoming EU Data Act.     

The Question Concerning the Common Frame of Reference

The many directives on private consumer law enacted in the last three decades have met with considerable neglect and resistance amongst domestic judges, legislatures and scholars, bringing about less legal unity and more ‘legal fragmentation'—to say it in the words of the Commission. The Draft Common Frame of Reference is one more attempt, on the part of certain strands of European private law scholarship, at imposing a formal break on, and at overcoming, such fragmentation. Presented as a ‘comprehensive and self‐standing’ document, its ambition is to definitively implement the Commission‐generated, market‐orientated agenda of private law reform, so much resisted at the national level. The article argues that the EU legislative institutions should not go ahead with the plan of incorporating the Draft's content in EU law, by adopting a CFR. A CFR would confer an unprecedented degree of authority on a range of contested directive‐generated rules, from the test of fairness to the risk development defence in product liability. In creating a climate in which CFR‐based legalistic arguments promote unity over fragmentation, a CFR would emasculate public debate by implementing, under the spell of legal necessity, exactly those partisan, Commission‐initiated policies that have been, and still are, openly opposed in domestic legal circles. The Draft embodies a grammar of imposition that should be questioned.     

The EU's Private Law in the Regulated Sectors: Competitive Market Handmaiden or Institutional Platform?

The article contests the claim that EU private law is narrowly circumscribed by a market rationality. Such a claim tracks broader criticism of EU functional legal integration, although it tends to obscure the underlying transformative pressures on private law and regulation and the role EU law plays in coping with such pressures. To offer a number of counter‐narratives, the article draws on examples from the regulated sectors, including telecommunications and energy, to reveal their experimentalist features. These suggest that EU private law is constructed through a process of error‐corrections, which allows for mutual adjustment of instruments and hybridisation of EU and local policy goals. The process results in more finely grained assemblages of autonomy and regulation to respond to concrete problems or newly salient policy goals, so that markets are understood as social institutions that are always works‐in‐progress rather than convergence points. Thus, EU private law provides a platform for transnational market‐building through innovating institutions that promote various normative and policy commitments despite the interdependencies that could undermine them.     

私法程序理论的法理学意义

传统法理学理论仅将静态的法律关系内容(仅利、义务或者权力)作为它们的基石范畴,忽视了法律行为在法理学中的应有地位。私法程序理论揭示了程序在私法中的普遍存在及其重要功能,证明了程序不仅仅是公法的“专利”。“程序”应当与“权利”一起作为法理学的基石范畴,构建以权利一程序关系为基本架构的法理学范畴逻辑体系,以便从法理学的层面消除重实体轻程序等流弊。     

围绕“人格”问题的法理论辩

"人格"问题在法学与法律上都是个众说纷纭的概念,由此也引起学界对其意义、范围以及与其它概念相区别的争论。诸如"人格的概念在法律上是否必需?","人格概念是否仅存在于私法制度之中?","人格"的概念是否与"法律主体"、"权利能力"的内涵相同?……等等,都常常引起人们的关注。作为法学、法律上的一个基础概念,人格有其存在的特殊意义,它既在私法上成为法律主体建构的基石,也在公法上为人的平等提供了依据。同时,人格既不等同于法律主体,也不类似于权利能力,而是法学、法律上具有独特内涵的专门范畴。     

德国国际私法渊源的新发展

在传统上,德国国际私法的渊源包括制定法、德国缔结或者参加的各种国际私法条约、习惯法和判例法,但是随着欧盟国际私法统一化的深入发展,尤其是欧洲共同体在公司法、合同法、物权法、知识产权法、破产法和国际民事诉讼程序法等领域的立法不断加强,欧盟法中的国际私法规范逐渐渗入德国国际私法,从而使德国国际私法的渊源突破了传统的范围,越来越多地打上了欧盟法的烙印,呈现出“欧盟化”倾向。     

Private Law and Public Stakes in European Integration: the Case of Property

Abstract:  In European legal discourse, the old public/private divide is experiencing a revival and a transformation. Member States used to claim autonomy in private law matters. Now private law is subsumed into a functionalist logic and can presumptively be harmonised if so demanded by the goal of market integration. States or local constituencies can only resist harmonisation by highlighting the connection between their private laws and those 'public' matters still immune from Europeanisation. Property law can effectively illustrate this phenomenon. The written pledge of non-interference with States' property systems, restated both in the TEC and in the draft Constitution, cannot be taken at face value, given the plethora of supra-national inroads into this field. But it performs the essential rhetorical function of reassuring national law makers that Europe will pay special attention to sovereign choices when harmonising those areas of private law which, like property, harbour an obvious core of constitutional values.     

Market Processes, Standardisation, and Tort Law

Private standards play a decisive role in tort law and in administrative law. Although they seem to be a perfect tool to achieve the goal of European integration, they tend to substitute democratic legitimacy with uncontrolled private governance. The loss of democratic control is accentuated by the failure of markets to provide sufficient incentives for standardising organisations to behave in a non-opportunistic manner. The dangers of cartelisation and oligopolistic behaviour are obvious. The approach to overcome these deficits is complex: on the one hand, an institutional governance of private organisations is necessary to incorporate third party interests in the process of enacting private standards; on the other hand, the legal effects of private standards have to be restricted to mere assumptions dependent on the democratic quality of their enacting process. The problem of democratic legitimacy is aggravated by the parallel substitution of state authorities' control by means of private certification organisations which control only the management procedures of firms. As these management systems are difficult to be evaluate, the opportunities for opportunistic behaviour amongst firms and certifiers increases. Moreover, markets themselves fail to discipline certifiers by virtue of a lack of observable factors which might indicate the quality of certification. Tort law, too, cannot fulfil that gap by providing liability for damages caused by undue certifications because tort law suffers from a variety of shortcomings such as missing protection of public goods and difficult assessments of causation linkages. In sum, the author argues for a mixture of market incentives, tort law and administrative law. Each sector must fill in the gaps left by the others.     

公私法的划分与法的内在结构

公私法的划分是法理学的基本问题之一 ,也是建设中国特色社会主义法律体系必须解决的一个基本问题。本文回顾了公私法划分的历史 ,评析了学者们关于公私法划分的根据 ,对公私法的含义进行了新的阐释 ,认为公私法的划分是法的内在结构问题 ,划分公私法的直接根据是法律调整的不同方法 ,而法律调整的方法 ,基本上或主要地决定于法律调整的对象。明确这一问题 ,有利于澄清长期困扰法理学界的一些重要问题 ,以便根据法律调整对象的不同和实际生活的需要 ,选择最佳的法律调整方法 ,这对建设中国特色社会主义法律体系具有重大的指导意义     

The Dead, the Law, and the Politics of the Past

This article explores the role of law in cultural and political disputes concerning dead bodies. It uses three interconnecting legal frameworks: cultural and moral ownership, commemoration, and closure. It begins with a critique of the limitations of the private law notion of 'ownership' in such contexts, setting out a broader notion of cultural and moral ownership as more appropriate for analysing legal disputes between states and indigenous tribes. It then examines how legal discourses concerning freedom of expression, religious and political traditions, and human rights and equality are utilized to regulate the public memory of the dead. Finally, it looks at the relationship between law and notions of closure in contexts where the dead have either died in battle or have been 'disappeared' during a conflict, arguing that law in such contexts goes beyond the traditional retributive focus of investigation and punishment of wrongdoers and instead centres on broader concerns of societal and personal healing.     

寻找丢失的人格--从罗马、德国、拉丁法族国家、前苏联、俄罗斯到中国

人格即法律主体资格。在罗马法中,人格———身份具有公私法混杂的特征;在近代欧洲大陆国家开始的法典化过程中,拉丁法族国家民法中的人格一词,依然包含公法因素,而德国法则创造权利能力概念取代人格,试图将人格私法化,但这样做却丢失了人格;前苏联民法中,人格则具有主体性要素之法律保护意义上的人格权,知识产权中的人格权,法人的人格权三种含义;新制定的俄罗斯民法典则回归到传统的主体资格意义上的人格概念。在我国民法典制定时,应恢复传统意义上的人格。     

The economics of notaries

In civil law legal systems, notaries fulfill two crucial roles, acting as both law enforcers and court officers, and as facilitators and enforcers of private transactions. In these countries, notaries achieve economies of scope by simultaneously providing private and public services and substituting both parties' lawyers. This arrangement is subject, however, to serious conflicts of interest that could prejudice the provision of public services that have attributes of externalities, as well as the notary's independence from all parties to the transaction. This paper shows how this notary system may be efficient in this context. Focusing on Spanish notaries, it analyzes the legal and economic nature of the services, the incentives that control their provision, and the cost in terms of competitive restraints that could be generated by the organizational patterns making up such incentives. Supporting empirical evidence is also provided.     

Dialogue with Dictators: Judicial Resistance in Argentina and Brazil

Throughout the world, judges are often asked to implement the repressive measures of authoritarian rulers. Which conception of legal interpretation and judicial role, if any, make judges more likely to resist such pressures? That question, central to Anglo-American jurisprudence since the Hart-Fuller debate, is addressed by examining recent military rule in Argentina and Brazil. In Argentina, judges were sympathetic to military rule and so criticized its “excesses” in the jurisprudential terms favored by the juntas: positivism and legal realism. Brazilian judges, by contrast, were largely unsympathetic to military rule, and so couched their criticism in terms of natural law, in order to raise larger questions and reach a broader public. Empirical study of the cases and conceptual analysis of existing theories both reveal that no view of legal interpretation inherently disposes its adherents to either accept or repudiate repressive law. Contingent political circtrmstances—the rulers’favored form of legal rhetoric, and the degree to which judges accept the need for a period of extra-constitutional rule—determine which legal theory fosters most resistance. But since most authoritarian rulers nominally affirm their constitutional predecessors’positive law and are often unwilling to codify publicly their most repressive policies, strict literalism usually offers the most congenial idiom for judicial resistance to such regimes.     

The Ideal of Codification and the Dynamics of Europeanisation: The Dutch Experience

Abstract:  In response to the growing incoherence of European contract law, the Commission is planning to adopt a 'common frame of reference' (CFR) in 2009. That CFR will effectively constitute a codification in a substantive sense. As a result, in codified systems such as The Netherlands, there will be a shift from the familiar tension between impressionistic harmonisation and systematic codification to a new tension between the system of the national civil code and the system of the substantive European code. Therefore, once the CFR is adopted by the Commission as a tool for revising the acquis and for drafting new directives, national legislators inspired by the codification ideal will have to reconsider their strategies towards the implementation of directives in the area of private law. Three such strategies are considered here: resistance, segregation and surrender. Each of them has advantages, but also disadvantages. None of them solve the tension between national codification and Europeanisation. It seems unlikely that private law will ever (again) be contained exclusively in one comprehensive code, either on the national or on the European level. The CFR will make a comprehensive national codification increasingly difficult to achieve, whereas a comprehensive European Civil Code that replaces national private law both lacks a legal basis and political support. Therefore, we will have to live with a two- (or multi-) level system of private law. As a result, the Dutch and other national legislators will have to revise their codification ideals.