Approximately 150 million people worldwide live in legal systems in which there is both a common law and a civil law content, yet there has been little comparative study of the experience of these 'mixed jurisdictions'. Here, the author considers these jurisdictions in a comparative framework, which includes their founding and raisons d'être, as well as the cultural divisions of the jurists and the evolutionary tendencies of their common and civil law components. In addition, he examines the internal contradictions between Anglo-American judicial institutions, methodologies and procedures, and the substantive civil law. The book argues that the legal systems of such far-flung and diverse cultures as the Philippines, Quebec, Scotland and South Africa have many unique and fruitful points of comparison. The conclusion is that these mixed jurisdictions form a closely related 'Third Legal Family' with cohesive traits and tendencies.

This examination of the mixed jurisdiction experience makes use of an innovative cross-comparative methodology to provide a wealth of detail on each of the nine countries studied. It identifies the deep resemblances and salient traits of this legal family and the broad analytical overview highlights the family links while providing a detailed individual treatment of each country which reveals their individual personalities. This updated second edition includes two new countries (Botswana and Malta) and the appendices explore all other mixed jurisdictions and contain a special report on Cameroon.

A path-breaking and masterly study of Louisiana slave law, this fascinating study offers an examination of the complex French, Spanish, Roman and American heritage of Louisiana's law of slavery and its codification, a profile of the first effort in modern history to integrate slavery into a European-style civil code, the 1808 Digest of Orleans, a trailblazing study of the unwritten laws of slavery and the legal impact of customs and practices developing outside of the Codes, an analysis that overturns the previous scholarly view that Roman law was the model for the Code Noir of 1685, a new unabridged translation (by Palmer) of the Code Noir of 1724 with the original French text on facing pages. "A very useful addition to the growing literature on the law of slavery, this book is particularly important in helping understand the complexity of the Louisiana Code Noir and its impact on American slave law. Palmer's discussion of how the Code came to be written will surprise and educate those who read this book. " --Paul Finkelman, John Hope Franklin Visiting Professor of American Legal History Duke University School of Law and President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law, Albany Law School "When it comes to demystifying slave law in Louisiana, Vernon Palmer is practically peerless. It's probably because he is equally comfortable in the weeds of lived experience as he is poring over the pages of classical learning. These masterful essays on the Code Noir's origins, plus Louisiana's 150-year interplay between custom and legal practice, belong on the shelf of anyone with the faintest curiosity about human bondage and the laws fashioned to make it work." --Lawrence N. Powell, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Tulane University "Slavery remains a current social and political problem, and Vernon Palmer s brilliant work illuminates its history, showing its legal and social complexity through a study primarily of Louisiana, where slavery was included in the first civil codes. Beautifully written, humane and insightful, this monograph will promote reflection on the fascinating legal history of Louisiana as well as on the famous Tannenbaum thesis." --John W. Cairns, FRSE, Chair of Legal History, University of Edinburgh "Palmer has written a path-breaking and splendid account of how Louisianians, newly under American rule, wrote the first modern codes that incorporated slavery in a systematic way into their civil law. Until now, ignored by scholars, these codifications moved slavery from the edges of the legal system to the very center stage in Louisiana courtrooms. The redactors of these codes implanted provisions about slavery into the law of persons, property, successions, sales and prescription, producing a unique Atlantic World slave law of incomparable richness and complexity unseen in other legal systems." --Judith Kelleher Schafer author of Slavery, the Civil Law and the Supreme Court of Louisiana and Becoming Free, Remaining Free: Manumission and Enslavement in New Orleans, 1846-1862

In 1808 the legislature of the Louisiana territory appointed two men to translate the Digest of the Laws in Force in the Territory of Orleans (or, as it was called at the time, simply the Code) from the original French into English. Those officials, however, did not reveal who received the commission, and the translators never identified themselves. Indeed, the “translators of 1808” guarded their secret so well that their identities have remained unknown for more than two hundred years. Their names, personalities, careers, and credentials, indeed everything about them, have been a missing chapter in Louisiana legal history. In this volume, Vernon Valentine Palmer, through painstaking research, uncovers the identity of the translators, presents their life stories, and evaluates their translation in the context of the birth of civil law in Louisiana. One consequence of the translators' previous anonymity has been that the translation itself has never been fully examined before this study. To be sure, the translation has been criticized and specific errors have been pointed out, but Palmer's study is the first general evaluation that considers the translation's goals, the Louisiana context, its merits and demerits, its innovations, failures, and successes. It thus allows us to understand how much and in what ways the translators affected the future course of Louisiana law. The Lost Translators, through painstaking research, uncovers the identity of the translators, presents their life stories, and evaluates their translation in the context of the birth of civil law in Louisiana.

An International Court of Civil Justice would give victims of multinationals a day in court while offering corporate defendants a cheaper, fairer litigation alternative.

A significant introduction to the study of comparative law and a notable scholarly work, Major Legal Systems in the World Today analyzes the general characteristics which lie behind the development of the four principal legal systems of the world: the Civil law, the Common law, the Socialist law (primarily Soviet), and those based on religious or philosophical principles (Muslim, Hindu, Chinese, Japanese, and African). Providing unique insights into the spirt of each legal family, the book presents a total view of the historical foundation and the sources and structure of the law in each system.

The most up-to-date and contextualised offering for comparative law students and scholars, referencing the newest research in the field.