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The paper presents the main features of the project “The Principles of BRICS Contract Law” and investigates the possible foundations of a common system of international commercial contract law within the BRICS’ network.

The chapter analyses the national report of the 5 authors from the 5 BRICS countries to find similarities and differences which might lead to the elaboration of common principles of contract law for the BRICS countries

Il saggio mira ad inquadrare come il dibattito centrato sulle funzioni primarie proprie alla responsabilità civile, variamente individuate nella compensazione dei danni, nella prevenzione del loro occorrere o nella sanzione dei loro autori, nella redistribuzione delle ricchezze e nel controllo dei costi sociali, si articola sovente – al buio di dati statistici affidabili, e di analisi macroeconomiche opportune – lungo distinzioni che si vogliono fisse o egemoniche, e nelle quali la riparazione appare talora opposta alla punizione, la deterrenza alla redistribuzione. Distinzioni queste che rischiano di irrigidire la riflessione in uno schema forzatamente unitario, non attrezzato alla comprensione della complessità di motivi che innerva le misure aquiliane. Al contrario, il contributo pone in luce come le funzioni della responsabilità vanno pazientemente ricostruite settore per settore nella luce delle finalità suppletive o complementari che essa può svolgere al fianco e al pari di ogni altro istituto.

Questo libro che nasce dall’idea di avvicinare ad alcune questioni fondamentali della responsabilità civile lettori che quelle questioni non hanno avuto la possibilità di esaminare analiticamente. L’obiettivo è di fornire chiavi di lettura utili a comprendere un settore al centro di riflessioni infinite da parte di antropologi, sociologi, economisti, di operatori delle assicurazioni, private e pubbliche, e ovviamente di giuristi, teorici e pratici. Un diritto, quello della responsabilità civile, che, da noi come altrove, è motore di trasmissione di ingenti trasferimenti di ricchezza. Un diritto, quello della responsabilità civile, che è sempre più spesso chiamato ad amministrare porzioni complesse di realtà.

The paper analyses the practical scope and the operational challenges that affect the protection of privacy (including the enforcement of the right to be forgotten) in the analog and digital world, with a special focus on the remedies available to ordinary people.

La fragilità del diritto nei circuiti di produzione delle idee è paradossale. Nessuno dubita che i sistemi giuridici stiano in corrispondenza biunivoca con le culture e le civiltà di cui sono frutto e seme. Tuttavia, nei nostri circoli intellettuali, mediatici e politici, il diritto è sovente trattato quale fonte di «codicilli», «cavilli», oppure come esercizio letterario, al massimo appendice di qualche corrente filosofica. Non stupisce perciò che quegli stessi circuiti riservino attenzioni maggiori ad altri saperi, spesso a loro volta ignari di come il diritto abbia sempre orientato, e sempre orienti, gli orizzonti su cui si esercitano le loro scienze, e tutti noi pratichiamo le nostre scelte. Ecco perché questo libro si presenta come un breviario, possibile punto di partenza per un'analisi - necessariamente comparata - del ruolo che il diritto svolge, a livello locale come nella sfera globale, nel farsi dei fenomeni economico-sociali.

This Chapter appraises the range and depth of Patrick Glenn’s scholarly legacy by exploring some of the many lessons that can be drawn from his opus magnum Legal Traditions of the World. To this purpose, the chapter focuses on three key notions underlying Glenn’s chefs-d’œuvre: Law, Tradition, and Conciliation. The argument is that Glenn’s findings have in multiple ways enlightened the understanding of what the law is (outside and also inside the West), as well as the relentless dynamics within and between legal traditions. Through these findings, Glenn has also provided us – his friends, colleagues, readers – with a powerful intellectual tool to pursue his conciliatory dream towards a world of tolerance and diversity.

The present chapter focuses on the methodology underlying the ‘Common Core of European Administrative Laws’ project in general, and its first research output on public authorities’ liability in particular. From this perspective, the chapter first introduces the current state of European tort law and the scholarly initiatives focusing on it, before presenting the basic outlines and distinctive features of the ‘Common Core’ approach and the rationale behind the three-level responses, which is one of the distinctive features of the whole project. The chapter thus sheds light on its potential contribution to European debates on public liability and comparative tort law.

Le présent essai vise à faire la lumière sur la culture et les instruments sur lesquels repose le droit américain pour continuer d’avancer sur son chemin dans la mondialisation, à les mettre en comparaison avec la bien plus fragile technostructure – et ambition – du droit européen, et à rappeler les voies à suivre pour que le droit européen retrouve le rôle que l’histoire lui avait attribué et que le futur lui réclame de jouer.

Il modo d’intendere il diritto da parte della politica Usa, dei suoi Governi, dei suoi circuiti mediatici e giuridici, ha generato dibattiti aspri, così sulle ragioni e i modi d’essere di quella che è stata definita l’egemonia giuridica a stelle e strisce, come sui rischi di una sovrapposizione fra rule of law americana e diritto globale. I dati che animano le discussioni vanno però meglio compresi. Da un lato, essi figurano quale esito e fattore di produzione di fenomeni ulteriori e assai rilevanti; dall’altro, si tratta di eventi ancora in corso e di cui è prematuro fissare qualsiasi data di scadenza. Questo saggio prende le mosse dalle radici della supremazia del pensiero giuridico statunitense, analizza poi in che modo quel dominio si sia tradotto in fonte d’ispirazione di politiche globali e si conclude con un cenno al ruolo strategico che non è stato giocato, ma potrebbe esserlo, dall’Europa.

The essay aims to review from a comparative law perspective the premises and postures underpinning Western efforts to transplant the rule of law outside the West. In order to do so, the paper first examines the historical and cultural foundations of the rule of law in the West and then scrutinizes its actual potential for being exported in non-Western societies. Through a historical and comparative analysis, the paper sheds light on a set of data that are usually either discarded or underrated in mainstream legal debates.

Il saggio affronta, in prospettiva comparatistica, il tema della compensatio lucri cum damno ripercorrendo le più importanti correnti giurisprudenziali sul punto.

La responsabilità civile è oggetto, non solo da noi, di attenzioni massicce da parte di antropologi, sociologi, economisti, di operatori delle assicurazioni, private e pubbliche, e ovviamente di giuristi, teorici e pratici. È altrettanto noto però che, nell’insegnamento e nei riflessi culturali proprii al diritto interno, la responsabilità civile è stata a lungo (e in molti manuali è tuttora) relegata al ruolo di appendice, di protesi di una sistematica che non sempre ha saputo cogliere l’espansione, la diversificazione e la straripante valenza economica delle questioni aquiliane. Del resto, la responsabilità civile è chiamata ad amministrare porzioni complesse di realtà. Detta complessità deriva dalla varietà di settori, problemi e situazioni suscettibili di ricadere nel campo di applicazione del rimedio risarcitorio. Ma vi è anche una complessità interna (seppure non propria solo) al diritto della responsabilità. Essa è dettata dalla molteplicità dei formanti che concorrono alla produzione delle regole, dalle loro interazioni reciproche, dalla stratificazione storica di modelli e proposte. Di tali dinamiche, con riguardo all’illecito, il presente lavoro mira a dar conto, scandagliandone le ragioni e gli esiti.

This essay presents the framework for new comparative research in the field of administrative law, with a focus on the European legal area. It is divided into two parts. In Part I, we argue that some difficulties that beset the traditional uses of the comparative method are even more evident when considering the field of administrative law. Accordingly, a methodological shift is needed in more than one sense. First, instead of focusing on either similarities or differences between national legal systems, both analogies and differences must be considered. Second, legal comparison, properly intended, differs from a mere juxtaposition of national administrative laws. Third, the overemphasis on legislation is even less justified in the field of administrative law, which calls for careful attention to judicial and institutional practices. In this perspective, we briefly illustrate the methodology grounded in a factual approach that has been developed in the field of comparative private law in the last few decades and the way we are going to apply it into our research on administrative law, viewed through a procedural lens. In Part II we discuss the main pillars that characterize our research concerning administrative law: first, its goal, which is the advancement of knowledge; second, the choice to focus on administrative procedure, instead of judicial review of administrative action; third, the methodology, which combines a synchronic comparison, concerning modern legal systems, with a diachronic comparison, that is to say a retrospective on some aspects of the history of legal institutions that look particularly relevant; and fourth, the choice of the legal systems selected for comparison, including a variety of states and a non-state, the European Union.

Notwithstanding the well-known differences that run through cultures and traditions, the West has never stopped trying to export its own law into the rest of the world. During and after the colonial era similar endeavors were spreading Western views on how legal issues are to be understood and handled, thereby broadening the West’s area of influence on global legal affairs. More recently, these efforts have overlapped with (and have been blurred by the rhetorical veil of) so-called legal globalization. The focus of this Article is on the attitudes and methods underpinning the ongoing Western attempts to transplant the two pillars of Western civilization, i.e., democracy and the rule of law, into outside contexts. Confronted with processes that concern different legal systems, this Article cannot but take a comparative law approach. Such an approach entails a careful consideration of the historical and contextual factors and will enable an analysis of data that are usually either discarded or underrated in mainstream legal debates. Thus notions, ideas, and debates about the rule of law and democracy will be reappraised from a comparative law point of view in order to both unearth their intimate legal foundations and to scrutinize their potential for being transplanted outside Western societies. The analysis will show how this potential, to the extent that it exists, can only be exploited through a radical shift from the usual way in which the West approaches the legal settings it aims to change.

According to the common understanding, tort law is the branch of private law whose set of positive rules, institutions, and procedures aims to shift the costs of accidents from the victim to a different subject. Similar accounts of tort law are widespread and uncontested, yet they fail to do justice to the overall role tort law plays in societies. Tort law does not live in legislatures, law firms, courts, and law books only. It also lives “in the shadow” of the official system of adjudication: in the offices of insurance companies; in people's notions about injury and risk, responsibility and justice; in the languages and images associated with law in mass-generated popular culture; as well as in public debates about what values should be protected and promoted, at what costs, and at the expense of whom. On the assumption that tort law is at the same time a product and a constituent of the very cultural framework in which it is embedded, the aim of this paper is to explore its cultural dimensions in a broad comparative perspective. Combining insights from legal anthropology, socio-legal literature, legal history, and comparative law, the article tries to understand the role that, in Western and non-Western legal traditions, tort law plays in responding to, and managing social conflicts. In this perspective, the paper studies the cultural frameworks that sustain the adjudication process outside and inside the courtrooms, and analyzes how notions, practices, and remedies of tort law “in action” vary across different social and cultural settings. It then puts forward some conclusions about the extent to which tort law notions, ideas, concepts, categorizations, and perceptions influence and, reciprocally, are influenced by the cultural framework of which they are an expression.

l saggio indaga il regime di (ir)responsabilità che accompagna le attività dell'ICANN, regolatore globale della governance dell'Internet.

Cette contribution s’adresse à la potentielle portée culturelle, économique et géopolitique que pourrait avoir un code continental des contrats d’affaires, pensé et rédigé pour devenir un point de repère pour tous les pays qui partagent la tradition civiliste.

Un'analisi che mostra come la stessa nozione di Occidente non si riesca a definire senza il suo diritto, i suoi giuristi, e le loro strategie, più o meno innocenti.

Combining insights from legal anthropology, socio-legal literature, legal history, and comparative law, the paper aims to understand the role that, in Western and non-Western legal traditions, tort law plays in responding to and managing social conflicts.

The article provides an overview of the project regarding harmonization of European tort laws and the costs and benefits associated with them.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, credit rating agencies (CRAs) have come under open criticism in the public and legal discourse. The picture that has broken the surface is one in which CRAs ended up compromising the quality of their activities in order to facilitate the selling of services and snatch or defend market shares in a thriving environment. Nevertheless, in the U.S. and in Europe, CRAs still are almost immune from any form of civil liability, and the regulatory approaches still content themselves with focusing on the use of the same administrative tools that have so far proved to be largely ineffective. All this explains why the debate has started questioning the reasonableness of keeping the private for-profit nature of the agencies, instead of straightforwardly transforming them into public bodies. But the answer about the optimal nature of, and the most appropriate deterrence model for the agencies may only come from considering a different perspective, which puts in place, not a national/regional plan aimed to fence off local misbehavior, but a global strategy to ensure worldwide appropriate accountability for CRAs. In this direction, the issue can be tackled under either a centralized-political, or a decentralized-judicial point of view.

The availability of democracy is usually presented as a pre-requisite of any evaluation – be it political, economic or legal – of any country, and as an imperative to pursue (with or without Western help) for all societies that do not enjoy it. Yet, discussions about non-democratic systems, and the Western aspiration to transform them, often fail to take into account – as they actually should – the basic elements of Western democratic societies, the very fabric with which democracy is woven. The paper adopts a comparative law approach to the issue. It takes into account the historical, technical, and cultural frameworks underlying Western democracies, and unveils the limits of the arguments usually employed by both the detractors of democracy itself, and those who believe that democracy is an easy-to-export commodity.

The paper claims that ‘mixity’ is an inherent quality of almost any legal systems, and not only of those that, for historical reasons, inherited legal features from the civil and common law traditions. From this ‘pluralistic’ point of view, all the experiences where Western legal models interact among themselves, or with religious, indigenous or customary laws, deserve to be included into the ‘mixed’ category. Such an approach reveals itself as a powerful cognitive tool to advance comparative knowledge about legal systems. In particular, it enables one to better understand: (a) the dynamism of any given legal system – be it national, sub-, or supra-national –; (b) the driving forces behind the penetration of ‘foreign’ elements in a given legal experience; and (c) the reasons for which there are variable degrees of resistance and/or resilience amidst the different layers a legal system is made of.

In scholarly arenas, the European codification processes is in full swing. In this article, I try to understand the reasons for which many of the efforts thus far carried on in the European codification-driven academic circles have been pursuing a compromise, in both theoretical approach and proposed rules, with the English common law tradition and experience. The analysis of these reasons makes me suggest that, lacking in the near future a truly common pan-European legal culture, any project of codification aiming to be successful in practice should shift the direction of the compromise (as necessary as it is for any supranational agreement) from the common law side of the Channel towards the pursuit of a balance within the continent, taking as a starting point civilian concepts, notions, and rules., Dans les cercles académiques, les processus de codification du droit privé européen battent leur plein. Mon propos ici est d’essayer de comprendre les raisons par lesquelles ce processus poursuit l’idée d’un compromis, tant dans l’approche théorique que dans les règles proposées, avec la tradition et l’expérience anglaise du common law. L’analyse de ces raisons me fait conclure que – en l’absence, dans un futur proche, d’une véritable culture juridique commune à l’Europe toute entière – tout projet de codification désireux d’aboutir devrait commencer dans un premier temps par déplacer le compromis (comme cela est nécessaire pour tout accord supranational) du côté Outre-Manche pour rechercher un équilibre à l’intérieur du continent en prenant comme point de départ les concepts, notions et règles civilistes., Bussani Mauro. Faut-il se passer du common law (européen)? Réflexions sur un code civil continental dans le droit mondialisé. In: Revue internationale de droit comparé. Vol. 62 N°1,2010. pp. 7-25.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) have come under open criticism in the public and legal debates. The picture that has broken surface is one in which CRAs ended up compromising the quality of their activities in order to facilitate the selling of services, and snatch or defend market shares. Nevertheless, in the US and in Europe the regulatory approaches content themselves with focusing on the same administrative tools that have so far proved to be largely ineffective. This is why scholars and opinion-makers have started questioning the current accountability regimes for CRAs, and the reasonableness of keeping the private for-profit nature of the agencies, instead of straightforwardly transforming them into public bodies. But the answers about the optimal nature of, and the most appropriate accountability model for the agencies may only come from considering a different perspective, which puts in place, not a national/regional plan aimed to fence off local misbehavior, but a global strategy to ensure worldwide effective accountability for CRAs. In this direction, the issue can be tackled under either a centralized-political, or a decentralized-judicial point of view.

International audience

The aims, methods, key aspects and features of the research carried out by the 'Common Core of European Private Law' project in the field of tort law are discussed. The distinctive tenets of the Common Core approach as applied to tort law issues and the scenarios that such an approach is bound to open are highlighted.

Law and economics shows that a key factor in determining the optimal economic loss rule is found in the relationship between pure economic loss and social loss. Economic loss should be compensable in torts only to the extent that it corresponds to a socially relevant loss. In this paper We undertake a comparative evaluation of the economic loss rule to verify whether modern legal systems, although not formally adopting the economic criterion, define the exclusionary rule in light of efficiency considerations. The comparative analysis reveals that the substantive applications of the economic loss rule in European jurisdictions are consistent with the predicates of economic analysis. (c) 2007 Published by Elsevier Inc.

The primary purpose of this article is to enrich the understanding of tort law in Ethiopia and Eritrea and how it affects the environment. Its standpoint is both positive and normative. Its secondary goal is to clarify the affinities, often hidden, between the issues raised by tort law in developing countries now and the same issues as they emerged in the Western tradition in the past. Methodologically, the article considers the interplay between two powerful tools of analysis: law and economics, and legal pluralism (as informed by the doctrine of legal stratification).