Legal Irritants: Good Faith in British Law or How Unifying Law Ends Up in New Divergencies

Legal transplant is an unsatisfactory metaphor for describing the transfer of legal rules from one legal system to another. Instead, the metaphor of legal irritant better describes the impact on the legal system, and then a distinction between tight and loose coupling between law and its social context better explains the trajectory of social effects. The example of the importation of the civil law concept of good faith into British law illustrates the co-evolving trajectories of the legal system and tightly coupled social systems which instead of furthering harmonisation of laws produces new divergences as their unintended consequences.     

Good Climate Governance: Only a Fragmented System of International Law Away?

Fragmentation is the hallmark of international environmental law—it is both the key to its success and the pathway to its unraveling. Recognizing that law is an essential component of systems of supranational climate governance, addressing gaps between international legal systems is fundamentally important to the legitimacy of international law and to on‐going attempts to use international law as a central component in efforts to address climate change. This article analyzes developments in international environmental law with a view towards suggesting how efforts to develop an international climate change legal regime—and a broader system of global climate governance—highlight the pressing need to look more closely at the linkages between climate change and other areas of international law and to begin thinking about ways to minimize gaps and maximize cooperation among international environmental institutions and between international environmental law and other spheres of international law.     

Three Faces of Justice and the Management of Change

The apparatus of legal principles we use has, far more than we realise, transformed the way we think about the control of private power in the name of social justice. The actual sort of equity that the legal and political system is searching for is not reflected in our major political theories, nor indeed in the official rhetoric of many such systems themselves. The reason for this mismatch has to do with the need to accomodate change – a space opened by the law and unacknowledged by theory.
This article sets out the current theoretical frameworks within which the regulation of private power is analysed, and it contrasts these with a different approach to the problem of justice at work in employment and corporate law that does not find its way into theory. Once that approach is given a formulation, its place within a larger theory of justice is proposed, and its wider implications for the relationship between state and civil society are investigated.     

刑法的调整对象

刑法有没有自己独立的调整对象,一直是国内外刑法学界争议的焦点。我国刑法学界和法学界通说都认为刑法没有自己独立的调整对象。但是,如果刑法真的没有自己独立的调整对象的话,区别刑法和其他部门法的依据主要在于调整手段的不同的话,那么,为什么调整同样的社会关系要用不同的调整手段呢?是否完全只能靠立法者来决定什么是刑法的调整范畴?那么,这样又怎么能够防止立法者可能产生的误差呢?因此,刑法应该有自己独立的调整对象。研究刑法的调整对象只能从刑法和其他部门法之间的区别中来界定,而刑法和其他部门法的区别就在于刑法调整的是破坏法律制度的行为,即刑法的调整对象是破坏法律制度的行为。     

Using Systems Theory to Study Legal Pluralism: What Could Be Gained?

This article examines the ability of modern systems theory to provide a foundation for understanding the problematic notion of legal pluralism, and to the ability of scholars to apply that understanding to engage in the study of pluralistic legal orders. In particular, it develops the observations of systems theory of the relationship between state law and violence by adopting one of its linked ideas, that of structural coupling. It also considers the role played by translation when law is identified by reference to the application of the legal code: legal/illegal. The whole analysis is underpinned by systems theory's account of the differences between studying premodern and modern societies.     

Improving the Non-Governmental System of Outsourcing Labour Regulation in China

Abstract:  This article examines, from a legal point of view, the working and functioning of the non-governmental system of outsourcing labour regulation in China. This examination is conducted from two angles. First, by adopting the analytical tool of contemporary international law, in particular human rights law, it is found that generally the outsourcing regulation system possesses its full legitimacy and special value in realising business entities' responsibilities to respect, protect, fulfil and promote labours' fundamental rights and interests. The international community has also set some minimum legal requirements in this regard. Second, reviewed in the context of domestic law and policy, this article identifies that many legal questions arising from the outsourcing of labour regulation in China have been neglected by either the governmental or the non-governmental labour regulation system. Some representative legal issues are illustrated. It is argued that the underlying causes are three pairs of controversies, i.e. the controversy between the ideal standardised model norms vis-à-vis the realistic specified local societal concerns; the controversy between the voluntary nature of the non-governmental norms vis-à-vis the necessity for official authorities' legal guidance and enforcement; and the controversy between the internal interests of the international production chain vis-à-vis the external interests of outer stakeholders. Finally, this article concludes that, on the one hand, the foreign buyer companies and the international non-governmental organisations must not neglect the particular societal concerns and demands in China, and, on the other hand, the Chinese public authorities should promote and direct the development of the non-governmental labour regulation by improving the governance of rule of law as well as policy making and implementation. Some tentative proposals are raised for solution.     

Comparative Law for Legal Translation: Through Multiple Perspectives to Multidimensional Knowledge

With this paper, I suggest a multiperspectivist approach for assessing conceptual legal knowledge with relevance for the translation of legal terms in translation between two or more different legal systems. The basic quest is to present a set of categories and analytical approaches for legal translators to generate (collect) and classify knowledge necessary for their professional conceptual needs. In this paper, I will focus on the translational, juridical, and cognitive basics of such an approach. In order to cope with the broad range of possible translational purposes in different translational situations and choose relevantly between alternative formulations, translators need methods and strategies in order to construct the necessary conceptual knowledge. This presupposes a broad knowledge structured in ways that enable the translator to recognize relevant characteristics of legal systems and relevant differences between different legal systems. Concerning translational theory, the basis is the functional theory of translation as adapted to legal translation, based upon the idea of translation as choice between alternatives and distinguishing between documentary translation, at one end of a scale, and instrumental translation, at the other. This basis and the distinction presuppose relevant knowledge from comparative law. Hence, existing approaches and fundamental tenets concerning comparative law inside and outside of translation are presented. In order for knowledge to be presented in a manageable way with relevance to translators, I work with the approach of concept frames as basic unit of knowledge gathering and categorization. This way of presenting knowledge is embedded more generally in a knowledge communication approach, focusing on knowledge asymmetry. Within this general framework, the multiperspectivist approach combines insights from cultural studies (especially the study of law-as-culture), law as a disciplinary social system, and communicative interaction generating meanings in legal communication, also across national borders.

     

Between Law and Social Norms: The Evolution of Global Governance

Abstract.  It is commonplace that economic globalization poses new challenges to legal theory. But instead of responding to these challenges, legal scholars often get caught up in heated yet purely abstract discussions of positivist and legal pluralist conceptions of the law. Meanwhile, economics-based theories such as "Law and Social Norms" have much less difficulty in analysing the newly arising forms of private and hybrid "governance without government" from a functional perspective. While legal theory has much to learn from these approaches, we argue that they fail in one crucial point: They cannot uphold the analytical distinction between law and non-law. The reasons for this shortcoming are theory-immanent in that the economic theories' focus on efficiency and their actor-based perspective are necessarily blind to "law's own rationality." We therefore propose to further develop those functional approaches to the study of global governance by complementing them with elements from Niklas Luhmann's systems theory of law. This will provide us with a conceptual framework for analyzing the workings of global governance regimes without ignoring their potential for "legalisation" and "constitutionalisation." As we will show in three concrete examples (Corporate Social Responsibility, lex mercatoria , and internet regulation) we can thus describe the evolution of new forms of legal regulation beyond the nation-state. This will also allow us to draw some preliminary conclusions on the role of law in the context of globalization and, at the same time, show the direction for further empirical research.     

浅析我国行纪制度的发展困境及对策

在我国《合同法》引入了类似英美的隐名代理和不公开本人身份的代理的合同委托制度后 ,作为大陆法系特有的行纪制度在发展中面临着一系列困境。本文综合相关问题出现的原因 ,提出我国行纪制度要保持独立性并获得发展 ,必须解决不同法系理念的整合问题、确定行纪与非显名代理的区分标准并且弥补现有立法的不足。随后提出了一系列对策 ,主张目前应理顺代理与行纪的关系 ,积累司法实践经验并加强商事单行法的制定工作。     

Taking the Measure of Law: The Case of the Doing Business Project

This article analyzes a number of yearly reports from the World Bank's Doing Business project, an ambitious international effort to measure various aspects of law and development, analyze their interrelationship, develop benchmarks for assessment of legal systems, and suggest legal reforms. After describing the methodology used, we analyze the strengths and limitations of the project, both as a scholarly enterprise and as a set of proposals for legal reform. Our analysis highlights the challenges associated with measuring legal variables in the face of legal complexity and uncertainty, measuring development when the concept of development is contested, tracing causal connections between law and development, and using scholarly research as a basis for legal reform.     

Labor Regulation,Corporate Governance,and Legal Origin: A Case of Institutional Complementarity?

We explore the influential claim that "legal origin"—the historical origin of a given national legal system in the common law or civil law—accounts for a significant degree of cross-national diversity in economic regulation and development. We show that the claim is undermined by problems in index construction and by a misreading of the implications of the common law/civil law divide for the respective roles of courts and legislatures in law making. We argue that a critical factor, instead, was the timing of industrialization in relation to the emergence of legal institutions associated with the modern business enterprise (the employment relationship and the joint stock company). We also show how distinctive "legal cultures" of the common law and civil law have played a part in setting national systems on separate pathways to economic development.     

法律语言技术化与法的现代性问题

追求精确的目标使法律发展出了一套专门语言,这种语言在许多方面与日常语言不同。法律的科学化带来了法律语言的技术化,法律语言作为专家语言日益与日常语言分离,伴随这种分离的是生活世界与系统的分离。语言是存在的家,生活世界存在于日常语言中,技术语言泛化带来生活世界的殖民化。法的现代性问题源于语言的分裂。交往行动与日常语言密不可分,只有实现技术语言与日常语言的有机融合,才能实现沟通理性对工具理性的治理。     

Law,culture and massively multiplayer online games

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are now a major international phenomena. Millions of people can play together online, readily navigating boundaries between nations, languages and legal jurisdictions. The communities around some of these games are huge, of a size equivalent to a large city or small nation. This article explores three themes, labelled for conceptual purposes ‘games as legal spaces’, ‘games need lawyers’, and ‘lawyers need games’. It argues that games are inherently legal spaces, infused with legal-ness in a variety of ways; that more direct engagement from the legal community would be of tremendous value in making these systems, and the entertainment spaces which they regulate, ‘better’; and that we have a great deal to learn about law and about the regulation of the online space from games. The article concludes with the proposition that there is an opportunity for impactful knowledge exchange between legal scholars, MMOG developers and publishers, and the gaming community.     

Some Remarks on the Notions of Legal Order and Legal System

Abstract
In this paper, the authors discuss some problems related to the existence and identity of legal norms and legal systems. Firstly, two criteria for identification of legal norms are analyzed: linguistic criteria and non-linguistic criteria. Secondly, the dynamics of legal systems and the distinction between legal system and legal order are examined (close to Raz's distinction between momentary legal system and legal system). Based on the logical relations of membership and inclusion, two ways of analysing the change of legal systems are suggested. Thirdly, a criterion for identification of legal orders (from Bulygin) is discussed and it is shown that this criterion does not explain adequately, on the one hand, the existence of some norms, i.e., customary norms; and, on the other, the existence of invalid norms; i.e., unconstitutional norms. The main conclusions of this paper are: (a) the concepts of legal system and legal order could not explain the existence of law in a given society; (b) the concepts of legal system and legal order could be considered models of rational normative systems.     

Legal Cultures in the European Union

The introductory part of the essay deals with the notion of legal culture and its categories. Later, the author sets forth the characteristics of the common law and the Roman- German legal cultures, including the legal families within them. He also touches upon the tendencies of the development of the German legal and political culture. With respect to the integration of the legal systems into the EU, the author argues as an advocate of convergence. Both basic legal cultures are being modified as, besides statutory law, judicial law becomes significant in the continental legal systems and statutory law complements case law in the common law systems. As to the integration of the Hungarian legal culture into the EU, the essay points to two principal considerations. On the one hand, when working on making our legal culture "euro-conform", we must not forget about maintaining our own legal culture. On the other hand, the Hungarian legal culture can contribute to the development of the legal system of the EU, e. g. with some of the regulations of our statute on the ethnic minorities. At the end, the author shows that the efficacy of the European law is heavily dependant upon the national legal systems.     

The Making of a Market Economy in China: Transformation of Government Regulation of Market Development

Abstract:  The making of a market economy in China occurred when the domestic legal system was largely underdeveloped. It is the administrative bureaucratic system that has played a leading role in the making of a market economy in China. In recent years, the Chinese Government has strived to establish a market economy based on the rule of law and has undertaken legal measures to rationalise government regulation of market economy development. However, the administrative bureaucratic system headed by the central government remains a strong party leading the market economy construction in China. This article argues that the administrative bureaucratic system and market economy development have evolved into a social institution. To transform the regulation of market economy development towards the rule of law is a social institutional change and is a slow and incremental process, as it is imbedded in the various formal and informal constraints in Chinese society.     

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.     

A Memorial for jeremy bentham: memory,fiction, and writing the law

At a moment when the European Union and globalisation are, in their different contexts, bringing systems of traditional law (like the Common Law), whose texts are presented as monuments to historical legal cultures, into confrontation with systems of written law which claim to be rational embodiments of universal principles of liberal justice, how might we remember Jeremy Bentham, the pioneer of the critique of the former in the name of the latter? This essay in ‘law-and-literature’ looks at the relation between memory, fiction and writing in both the Common Law and in the two last projects for which the radical legal positivist sought to be remembered: the Constitutional Code for the Use of All Nations and All Governments Professing Liberal Opinions (1830) and Auto-Icon: Or, Farther Uses of the Dead to the Living (published posthumously in 1842). By examining Bentham’s linguistic theory and practice, the article raises questions about the relations between the ‘law’ of writing and the writing of law.     

论行政区划的法律调控

随着我国经济改革、社会转型,传统的以行政控制为主要价值取向的行政区划制度已不再适应社会发展的需求,因此,需要对其重新进行界定和功能定位,将其纳入法律调控的范畴。行政区划管理涉及许多法律问题,如行政区划的设置主体与权限、行政区划的层级划分与等级、行政区划的设定标准、设置程序以及纠纷解决机制等。对行政区划实行法律调控需要相应的立法保障,既要确立行政区划管理须遵循的法律精神,也需要建立法律调控的具体制度。     

寻求不一致的一致——试论软法与协商民主机制的结构性耦合

卢曼认为,法律是一个使用合法/不合法的独特符号作为沟通手段的独立的规则系统,是人类行为的规范性预期的制度化。法律规范作为独立系统欲保持稳定与再生则必须在封闭运行的同时与外部环境之间保持认知的开放,其对外部环境刺激的稳定回应模式即为结构性耦合。从此视角观察,软法是一个相对而言制度化程度较低的,其稳定预期的功能相对弱化了的规则系统,它允许中间程度的效力,其创生本身具有回应性目的。软法建构的环境在国际关系和国内民主政治领域的表现形式就是协商民主。协商民主政治机制本身的出现就具有回应民主程度问题的性质,其成功的几个关键机制需要弹性的规范体系。软法能够模式化地回应协商民主的需要而与之形成结构性耦合。