The non-retroactivity of crimes and punishments has become a rule of customary international law. How it did so is an interesting and complex story about the use of comparative law in the making of international law. This rule of international human rights law can be demonstrated as rigorously from practice and opinio juris as any other rule of customary international law. It is sometimes said that less evidence of state practice is necessary to treat an international human right as customary international law. Rules of human rights law, however, are far safer and more secure if grounded in practice as well as opinio juris. Legality is an excellent tool for making such a demonstration of technique in human rights law.…

One constitutes oneself as a comparatist by rejecting the fixity of conceptually homogenized understandings and by marking a third location that is neither one nor the other but, disputing the territories of both, something else besides. For the comparatist-at-law, the third space is distinguishable from the laws being compared (it is neither outside or astride those laws) while not being reducible to a composite of the pre-existing laws. In the third space, there takes place a re-articulation projecting meaning beyond any signification obtaining in the situated laws. As it displaces them, the third space can properly be regarded as effectuating an othering of those laws. The third space introduces another other to the comparison-at-law (when it comes to comparison, one…

Some ten years ago Austria and Germany have adopted corporate governance codes. These codes were modelled after the English corporate governance code. The two codes and rules of corporate law based on these codes have become firmly established in the Austrian and German legal system. They have been absorbed into the national jurisdiction. The presentation will examine the effect these transplants have had on Austrian and German law. Has the adoption of English corporate law rules led to convergence? Have the rules changed as a result of the transplantation? To what extent has Austrian and German law interpreted the transplanted rules in light of their origin?

Each country shapes its family law to a great extent in accordance with the traditions, customs and religious values inherently dominant in its own country. Therefore, what is usual and natural in one jurisdiction could be regarded as a strange practice in another. Religious marriages and divorces are typical examples of institutions which can be perceived in a multitude of different ways due to cultural particularities. Thus, conflicts arise between the laws of countries with different legal philosophies and cultural traditions. The difficulties become greatest when the conflict is between the laws of countries without any common legal or cultural tradition. Prof. Dr. Ekşi will discuss the following essential question: to what extent are religious marriages such as polygamous marriages,…

Comparative lawyers have been fascinated by the challenges that are thrown by legal transplants. In mixed jurisdictions where two or more legal traditions have taken root comparative jurists are able to observe how these legal traditions sometimes conflict and sometimes mingle with each other. In the case of Sri Lanka where Colonial masters found fairly well developed indigenous laws the introduction of their laws have had to be done in not a destructive way but in a complimentary manner. The British Colonial administration which is responsible for forming the present state of law and legal system in Sri Lanka respected not only the indigenous laws but also the Roman Dutch law that had been introduced by their predecessors the Dutch.…

Against the background of globalization, contemporary international economic law has the features of internationalization of national norms and domestication of transnational provisions. By its side, a case law is emerged which is relied upon by both institutional and ad hoc dispute resolution bodies. As services and investment are inseparable in nature, the dichotomies between the norms governing international trade and those regulating international investment are transcended. At the same time, the number of participants in both trade and investment has greatly increased and will continue to grow. These developments have posed challenges to the current regime. The international community must consider alternatives for improving the system of international economic law and give directions to its future development.

The US law of international commercial arbitration is for the first time the subject of a "Restatement of the Law" by the American Law Institute -- a project designed, like all US Restatements, to bring coherence and some progressive thinking to a body of American law in great need of that. Portions of the Restatement (notably recognition and enforcement of international awards) have been completed and approved. Others (notably confirmation and annulment of awards) are in draft form. And still others (notably enforcing the arbitration agreement, judicial intervention in arbitral proceedings, and investor/state arbitration) still remain to be launched. Professor George Bermann, of Columbia Law School and Chief Reporter of the Restatement, will present both the general lines of debate…