Suchergebnisse

Are national legal cultures in Europe converging or diverging as a result of the pressures of European legal integration? Åse B. Grødeland and William L. Miller address this question by exploring the attitudes and perceptions of the general public and law professionals in five European countries: England, Norway, Bulgaria, Poland and the Ukraine. Presenting new findings, they challenge the established view that ordinary citizens and people working professionally with the law have different legal cultures. Their research in fact reveals that the attitudes of citizens in Eastern and Western Europe towards 'law-in-principle' are remarkably similar, whereas perceptions of 'law-in-practice' differ by country and often correlate with GDP per capita and country ranking in rule of law indices. Grødeland and Miller's innovative methodological approach will appeal to both experts and non-experts with an interest in legal culture, European integration, or European elite and public opinion

Abstract: At first glance, many jurists often perceive their own (Private) law to be somewhat hermetic in nature. Their law exists in its own self-contained cosmos, independent from others in the legal universe, yet its atmosphere is sometimes breached by the 'meteorites' of international and European law. The reasons for this perception are clear: it is often difficult to ascertain in ones own legal system the influences from foreign (or supranational) law and from foreign legal cultures. This is impeded further by most universities failing to approach this topic, except briefly in the context of international and European law. The following therefore shall attempt to at least attenuate this deficit by providing a 'birds-eye view' of German law. In doing so, not only shall the clear marks left in each legal area by foreign and supranational law be shown, but also how they continue to considerably impact upon the German legal landscape and legal culture. Résumé: De nombreux juristes perçoivent souvent à première vue leur propre droit (privé) comme étant de nature assez hermétique. Leur droit existe dans un propre cosmos fermé, indépendant des autres dans l'univers juridique, alors que les «météorites» du droit international et européen ouvrent des brèches dans l'atmosphère. Les raisons de cette perception sont claires: il est souvent diffi cile de constater dans son propre système légal les infl uences du droit étranger (ou supranational) et les cultures juridiques étrangères. Ce phénomène est encore renforcé par la plupart des universités qui ne traitent pas ce sujet, ou brièvement dans le contexte du droit international et européen. C'est pourquoi le présent article s'efforce- t-il d'atténuer à tout le moins ce manquement en fournissant un aperçu «à vol d'oiseau» du droit allemand. Ainsi, on montrera non seulement les traces évidentes laissées par le droit étranger et supranational dans chaque aire juridique, mais on verra aussi comment ils continuent à infl uencer considérablement la culture et le paysage juridiques allemands. Zusammenfassung: Auf den ersten Blick erscheint vielen Juristen das eigene (Privat-) Recht oftmals als ein hermetisch geschlossener Kosmos, der - abgesehen von einigen wenigen oftmals als störend wahrgenommenen 'Meteoriten' aus dem Bereich des internationalen und europäischen Rechts - autark von anderen Universen existiert. Die Gründe liegen auf der Hand: dem eigenen Recht sind die Einfl üsse ausländischen (oder supranationalen) Rechts und der ausländischen Rechtskulturen regelmäßig nur schwer anzusehen und sie werden an den meisten Universitäten (mit Ausnahme eines oftmals kurzen Blicks auf die 'Meteoriten' internationaler bzw. europäischer Herkunft) auch nicht vermittelt. Der nachfolgende Beitrag versucht diesen Missstand zumindest abzumildern, indem 'aus der Vogelperspektive' für das deutsche Recht aufgezeigt werden soll, wie deutlich ausländisches und supranationales Recht in allen Bereichen ihren Spuren hinterlassen haben und auch weiterhin die deutsche Rechtslandschaft und Rechtskultur maßgeblich mitprägen.

"[This book] discusses the relatively new field of information law which was induced by profound changes and progress in information technology in recent decades. The book contains some twenty representative texts of significant and at times seminal importance. Following the structure of the Anthology, each of these texts is introduced by a background note and followed by additional comments as well as biographical references and biographies of authors. A homogenous approach governing information law issues so far has not been developed. This is due to the fact that information law is a cross-sectional discipline, making it inevitable to apply an interdisciplinary approach (leading to the reprint of texts written by IT-experts in this volume). In addition, a phenomenological way of looking at issues is also necessary since information law has spillover effects on other normative areas such as data protection, contract/liability law, competition/intellectual property law and e-government issues. During the last ten years, information law has been increasingly overlapped by Internet law obviously having a broad scope and encompassing a wide variety of topics. The new technological developments still need to be embedded into a structural framework designed by the main information law themes. Such a normative framework should enshrine elements for an internationalization of policy considerations, elements for a multi-layer regulatory approach with multi-stakeholder participation, and elements for consensus on substantive guiding principles."--