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Diversities Among Common Law Countries1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2017

Francis Reynolds
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Abstract

My purpose is to provide a survey indicating some of the differences within the common law between one country and another. I must immediately make clear that there is at least one person, perhaps several, in this room (including the other speakers) who know very much more about any one of the topics I shall consider than I claim to do. I hope that they will excuse me for any inaccuracies or lapses of understanding in their own areas: my only purpose is to make general observations on the diversities between common law countries as I see them.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Legal Information , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 7 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017 

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Footnotes

2

©Francis Reynolds, Q.C., F.B.A. The author is Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Oxford.

1

This is the text of an oral presentation made at International Association of Law Libraries, 35th Annual Course on International Law and Legal Information, Common Law Perspectives in a Global Context, Keble College, Oxford, 31 July–3 August 2016.  The author wishes make clear that these contents represent a general lecture given at the above-mentioned conference. There are few footnotes, and the piece is not purported to be scholarly.

References

3 In discussion after the delivery of this article the point was made that a lot of American case law involves statutes (e.g. the Uniform Commercial Code) and constitutional matters. It was affirmed that the methodology remains clearly that of the common law.

4 In discussion, reference was made to interest in implanting the common law concept (in fact arising from Equity) of Trust into civil law systems: an example is China. The reasons for doing so would be to use the concept in a commercial context.