Mixed Jurisdictions Compared

Returning to a theme featured in some of the earlier volumes in the Edinburgh Studies in Law series, this volume offers an in-depth study of 'mixed jurisdictions' -- legal systems which combine elements of the Anglo-American Common Law and the European Civil Law traditions. This new collection of essays compares key areas of private law in Scotland and Louisiana. In thirteen chapters, written by distinguished scholars on both sides of the Atlantic, it explores not only legal rules but also the reasons for the rules, discussing legal history, social and cultural factors, and the law in practice, in order to account for patterns of similarity and difference. Contributions are drawn from the Law Schools of Tulane University, Louisiana State University, Loyola University New Orleans, the American University Washington DC, and the Universities of Aberdeen, Strathclyde and Edinburgh. This title will be of interest to students of comparative law at senior undergraduate and postgraduate level, academics and researchers and also those who are interested in the mixed jurisdictions for the lessons they offer in the context of harmonisation of private law in Europe.

This is an impressive and extremely valuable contribution not only to the study of the law of mixed jurisdictions, but also of comparative law in general. Mixed jurisdictions are veritable comparative-law laboratories in continuous operation. A comparison of two such laboratories, when done with the insight, depth and sophistication that characterize this book, is a marvelous gift to comparatists and legal historians around the world. -- Symeon C. Symeonides, Dean and Alex L. Parks Distinguished Professor of Law, President, American Society of Comparative Law Fifty years ago, mixed legal systems would reach out to one another feeling embattled and lonely, as if banding together would stave off their otherwise inevitable juridical demise. Today, legal sources are increasingly recognized as mixed in nearly all jurisdictions and, as a result, places like Louisiana and Scotland are no longer seen as isolated or exotic. This book is thus doubly important: first, as comparative study of private law in Louisiana and Scotland and, second, as a work that helps explain the reconfiguration - real or imagined - of legal traditions elsewhere in this age of globalization. -- Nicholas Kasirer, McGill University This is an impressive and extremely valuable contribution not only to the study of the law of mixed jurisdictions, but also of comparative law in general. Mixed jurisdictions are veritable comparative-law laboratories in continuous operation. A comparison of two such laboratories, when done with the insight, depth and sophistication that characterize this book, is a marvelous gift to comparatists and legal historians around the world. Fifty years ago, mixed legal systems would reach out to one another feeling embattled and lonely, as if banding together would stave off their otherwise inevitable juridical demise. Today, legal sources are increasingly recognized as mixed in nearly all jurisdictions and, as a result, places like Louisiana and Scotland are no longer seen as isolated or exotic. This book is thus doubly important: first, as comparative study of private law in Louisiana and Scotland and, second, as a work that helps explain the reconfiguration - real or imagined - of legal traditions elsewhere in this age of globalization.

Vernon Valentine Palmer is Thomas Pickles Professor of Law, and Co-Director of the Eason-Weinmann Center of Comparative Law at Tulane University Law School. Elspeth Reid is Senior Lecturer, School of Law, University of Edinburgh.