Classification of legal cultures

20 th century

significant classifcation work

2 objectifves for the diff classifications

educational => place in diff cats to build a global map

political => classi used to determine level of potentional harmonization between different LSand legal systems.

categories based on multiple criteria, such as

language for LS

predominant religion

poltiical regime

place given to the insution

crisiticsm of the different methods

• criteria needs to be sufficiently broad (existing ones => oversimplified versions of reality)

• criterias created by private lawyers => weight of politics and administration and constitunal law is underestimated

• exclusively focuses on internal law => not supranational

• relevancy of certain classification put in douvt because of globalization and internalization of sources of the law

Rene David’s classification

1950 : 4 original cats of classification:

• common law

• romano-germanic syst

• socialist law

• other conception of law

Rene David’s classification criticized in 1990’s

• fall of USSR so classficiation outdated

• communist ideology become predominant in china

• lack of rep of japan

• islamic world evolved and couldnt be ignored

newest classification of RD

• romano-germanic

• russian syst

• comon law

• muslim

• indian

• far east

• african syst

• law of madagascar

Zweigert and Kötz’s classification

• romanist legal family

• germanic

• anglo-american

• nordic

• far east

• socialist

• religious

Z and K opinion was that

if 1 system representative of its larger group=> comparisits should be able to focus on that o

pb of Z and K classification and opinion

approach neglected specificities of other LS and created limited POV and increase risk of mistakes

Ugo Mattei

italian author proposed his classificaiton in 1997, his classification was very flexibe, and underlined that msot existing cassification were euro-american centric

Mattei proposed tripartite classification based on social behaviour that plays a leading role in each LS

• rule of professional law

• rule of political law

• rule of traditional law

rule of professional law

• put law at center of society,

• when legal process is separate from political process and secularized => RPL dominant

• law = autonomous body of rules separate from other soc norms

• primary means to solve dispute

• court decisions are made by legal profesionnals and based on legal merit (western, scandanavian)

rule of political law

• This family of law includes "the systems in which the pol process and the legal process cannot be separated"

• The political power decides on the law

• The law isn't completely absent but it's "marginalized and weak" before the pol power

• No formal law binding on the government

• Mattei includes developing countries in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, Cuba but he doesn't include China and North Korea

Rule of traditional law

• The systems included by Mattei are legal systems either based on religion or on philosophy

• Ex: Islamic law countries, Indian law, Hindu law, Asian law, China, Japan

• Political law and traditional law aren't absent in these systems

mattei underlines that

these 3 patterns systematically exist and interact in every LS their role can be more or less big

Arminjon, Nolde and Wolff’s classifications, classified systems in 7 gp

• French

• Germanic

• Scandinavian

• English

• Islamic

• Hindu

• Soviet

Malmström’s classification

One unique western group (common law and the Romano Germanic systems)

legal transplant

difficult to classify system into given family because LT intervenes and alters existing legal frameworks.

because of globalization, some legal concepts have travelled to implant themselves in legal systems in which they did not originally exist.

law used be solely as a means to

regulate social relationships within society

now, law is used as a means to be economically attractive

law shopping => private individuals will look at what is best laws to determine where to conduct hteir activities (ex: Delaware)

Between 2003 & 2019

World Bank published annual ranking called ‘Doing Business Rankings’ which classified LS according to their attractiveness and competitiveness.

2019

‘Doing Business Rankings’ interrupted because it has been established that a certain number of countries have tries to put some pressure on the World Bank to improve their ranking

law shopping often accompanied by

forum shopping => claimant tries to favour one court over another because knows court might favour him