This book offers a novel perspective on the leading concept of harmonisation, advocating the mutual benefits and practical utility of harmonised law. Theoretical models and factors for harmonisation are explored in detail. Antonios E. Platsas acknowledges a range of additional factors and presents harmonisation as a widely applicable and useful theory.
Harmonised and uniform international laws are now being spread across different jurisdictions and fields of law, bringing with them an increasing body of scholarship on practical problems and theoretical dimensions. This comprehensive and insightful book focuses on the contributions to the development and understanding of the critical theory of harmonisation. The contributing authors address a variety of different subjects concerned with harmonisation and the application of legal rules resulting from harmonisation efforts. This study is written by leading scholars engaged in different aspects of harmonisation, and covers both regional harmonisation within the EU and regional human rights treaties, as well as harmonisation with international treaty obligations. With comparative analysis that contributes to the development of a more general theory on the harmonisation process, this timely book will appeal to EU and international law scholars and practitioners, as well as those looking to future legal harmonisation in other regions in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
This book explores how the EU’s enforcement of competition law has moved from centralisation to decentralisation over the years, with the National Competition Authorities embracing more enforcement powers. At the same time, harmonisation has been employed as a solution to ensure that the enforcement of EU competition rules is not weakened and the internal market remains a level playing field. While employing a comparative law argument, the book, accordingly, analyses the need for harmonisation throughout the different stages of development of the EU’s competition law enforcement (save Merger control and State Aid), the underlying rationale, and the extent to which comparative studies have been undertaken to facilitate the harmonisation process from an historical perspective. It also covers the Directives, such as the Antitrust Damages Directive and the ECN+ Directive. Investigating both public and private enforcement, it also examines the travaux préparatoires for the enforcement legislation in order to discover the drafters’ intent. The book addresses the European and the Member States’ perspectives, namely, the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, as harmonisation proceeds through dialogue and cooperation between the two levels. Lastly, it explores the extent to which harmonisation of the competition law enforcement framework has been accepted and implemented in the Member States’ legal systems, or has led to the fragmentation of the national systems of the CEE countries.
Traditionally, conflict of law rules designate only national substantive law as the applicable law. Many unifying and harmonizing substantive law instruments of both States and non-State organizations, however, are designed specifically for application to cross-border relationships. Achieving this objective is, generally, hindered by conflict of law rules. The requirements which non-national law needs to fulfil in order to be accepted as the law governing a cross-border relationship deserve clarification. Not only uniform law, such as the CISG and the envisaged European substantive law instrument for the law of obligations, but, particularly, instruments which are aimed at harmonizing substantive law, challenge the established systems of conflict of laws. In seeking a positive approach towards the application of a law other than national law various aspects need to be considered: (1) is the decision taken by a court or an arbitral tribunal; (2) what field of law (contract/delict/tort or family relationships) is involved; and (3) the objective or subjective (choice by the parties) designation of the applicable law.
In theory, the numerous existing formal instruments designed to unify or harmonize international commercial law should achieve the implied (and desired) end result: resolution of the legal uncertainty and lack of predictability in the legal position of traders. However, it is well known that they fall far short of such an outcome. This innovative book (based on a conference held at the University of Aarhus in October 2009) offers deeply considered, authoritative responses to important practical questions that have still not been answered comprehensively, and that need to be answered for the efficient conduct of international commerce and for the future development of international commercial law. These questions include: ; Can clearly preferred methods of unification and harmonization be identified? What are the benefits of achieving unification and harmonization by means of party autonomy and contract practice? Is it necessary first to harmonize some aspects of private international law? Which aspects of unification and harmonization should be formal, and which can remain informal? How should formal and informal measures interact? What conflicts are likely to arise, and what resolutions are available? Should tensions be seen as inevitable, positive, and necessary? Which of several international instruments are applicable, and what order of priority should apply? Sixteen different nationalities are represented, allowing for fruitful discussion across all major legal systems. Prominent scholars and experienced practitioners offer deeply informed insights into how to navigate the complex field of international commercial law with its multiplicity of instruments, and how to resolve or neutralize the possible defects of various different means of unification and harmonization of international commercial law. These insights and proposals are sure to be welcomed by interested academics, practitioners, judges, arbitrators, and businessmen throughout the world at global, regional, and local levels.
Is the unification and harmonisation of (international) family law in Europe necessary? Is it feasible, desirable and possible? Reading the different contributions to this book may certainly inspire those who would like to find the right answers to these questions.
This book includes detailed discussion of issues such as Member State liability in damages, Community control over national limitation periods, and the principles governing state aid and competition law enforcement.
This book presents the results of research project financed by the Hague Institute for the Internationalization of Law (HiiL) and carried out at the Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC) of Tilburg University. The project team shows that globalization, instead of threatening national legal systems, put them in a new role and gives them continuing relevance. First of all, once one takes a more functional view of the law, based on law and economics and comparative law literature, harmonization or unification of national legal systems is no longer a foregone conclusion. Secondly, fundamental constitutional principles continue to bear in the era of multi-level and transnational governance: they become governance principles, divorced from specific institutional settings. Finally, looking beyond regulatory competition and comparative law, legal emulation provides a rich and fruitful model to explain the interplay between legal systems. This book explores these three themes, both at a theoretical level and in the light of specific examples.
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.
This open access book presents a topical, comprehensive and differentiated analysis of Germany’s public administration and reforms. It provides an overview on key elements of German public administration at the federal, Länder and local levels of government as well as on current reform activities of the public sector. It examines the key institutional features of German public administration; the changing relationships between public administration, society and the private sector; the administrative reforms at different levels of the federal system and numerous sectors; and new challenges and modernization approaches like digitalization, Open Government and Better Regulation. Each chapter offers a combination of descriptive information and problem-oriented analysis, presenting key topical issues in Germany which are relevant to an international readership.