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European Legal Systems are not Converging

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2008

Pierre Legrand
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Since the late 1940s, economic considerations relating to the globalisation of world markets have led an ever larger group of Western European countries to unite in the quest for a supra-national legal order which, in time, generated the European Community. Most of these countries' legal orders claim allegiance to what anglophones are fond of labelling the “civli law” tradition,1 although two common law jurisdictions joined the Community in the early 1970s. The European Community's early decision to promote economic integration (and, later, other types of integration) through harmonisation or unification has involved, at both Community and national levels (for the implementation of Community rules in the member States carries the adoption of national rules in all member States), a process of relentless “juridification”; law, in the guise of legislatively or judicially enacted rules, has assumed the role of a “steering medium”.2 This development was foreseeable: once the interaction among European legal systems had acted as a catalyst for the creation of a supra-system,3 the need to achieve reciprocal compatibility between the infra-systems and the supra-system naturally fostered the development of an extended network of interconnections (such as regulations and directives) which eventually raised the question of further legal integration in the form of a common law of Europe.4

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Articles
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International & Comparative Law Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , January 1996 , pp. 52 - 81
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Copyright © British Institute of International and Comparative Law 1996

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References

1. For a helpful definition of the “civil law” tradition allowing for a differentiation between those legal systems that belong to it and those that do not, see Alan, Watson, The Making of the Civil Law System (1981), p.4. Although Watson's criterion of “civility” is narrower, it is arguable that the Scandinavian countries form part of the civil law world, if as peripheral constituents: see Jacob W. F. Sundberg, “Civil Law, Common Law and the Scandinavians” (1969) 13 Scandinavian Studies in Law 179.Google Scholar

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14. Idem, p.7.

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32. I draw on Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern (trans. by Catherine Porter, 1993).

33. A similar phenomenon is at work within law itself (that is, en abyme) where it takes the form of the departmentalisation of the legal mind.

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39. John Merryman (1987) 35 A.J.Comp.L. 438, 441 (letter to the editor).

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41. I am not denying the existence of a long-standing and important influence of the civil law tradition on English law. Clearly, English law did not develop in the insular way in which it continues to be represented by an important current of English legal scholarship. This question has benefited from much scholarly interest in recent years. See, for an effective demonstration of the argument, Michele, Graziadei, “Changing Images of the Law in XIXth Century English Legal Thought (The Continental Impulse)”, in Mathias, Reimann (Ed.), The Reception of Continental Ideas in the Common Law World 1820–1920 (1994). See also e.g. Gino Gorla and Luigi Moccia, “A ‘Revisiting’ of the Comparison Between ‘Continental Law’ and ‘English Law’ (16th–19th Century)” (1981) 2 J. Leg. Hist. 143; Luigi Moccia, “English Law Attitudes to the ‘Civil Law’” (1981) 2 J. Leg. Hist. 157. But to say that there has been an influence of the civil law tradition on English law at the level of rules, concepts, substantive and adjectival law, and institutional bodies (which is the point effectively made by authors like Graziadei) says nothing as regards an eventual epistemological convergence.Google Scholar

42. See, for a general reflection on why law is an unsatisfactory tool of European integration, Christian Mouly, “Le droit peut-il favoriser l'intégration européenne?” (1985) Rev. int. dr. comp. 895.

43. Hofstede, op. cit. supra n.26, at p.16.

44. See Martin Krygier, “Law as Tradition” (1986) 5 Law and Philosophy 237; “The Traditionality of Statutes” (1988) 1 Ratio Juris 20.

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73. Schauer, , op. cit. supra n.68, at p.178.Google ScholarSee also Joseph, Vining, The Authoritative and the Authoritarian (1986), p.45: “What are called ‘the rules laid down by a decision’ are verbal formulations of the reasons relied upon by a decision maker in making the decision. Those reasons are values, importances; any decision maker acting in a particular role necessarily gives relative weights to them in making a particular decision.”Google Scholar

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87. [1965] 1 Q.B. 232, 242–243 (Diplock L.J).

88. Kingdom of Spain v. Christie, Manson & Woods Ltd [1986] 1 W.L.R. 1120. 1129 (Browne-Wilkinson V-C).

89. F. v. Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council [1991] 2 W.L.R. 1132 (CA).

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98. Ghestin and Goubeaux, loc. cit. supra n.84 (“l'usage quotidien du terme [et] le rôle qu'il joue dans la plupart des raisonnements”). See generally e.g. Jean Dabin, Le droit subjectif (1952).

99. Edward Coke, “Deo, Patriae, Tibi”, 8 Co.Rep. IV at iv (being the preface to the eighth of a collection of reports published between 1600 and 1616). See also e.g. William, Blackstone. Commentaries on the Laws of England Vol.I (1979), p.67: “in our law the goodness of a custom depends upon it's having been used time out of mind; or, in the solemnity of our legal phrase, time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. This it is that gives it it's weight and authority; and of this nature are the maxims and customs which compose the common law, or lex non scripta, of this kingdom” (reprint from the 1765 edn).Google Scholar

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106. Idem, p.217.

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128. Ibid.

129. Michael, Walzer, Interpretation and Social Criticism (1987), p.39 (emphasis original).Google ScholarSee also Ronald, Dworkin, Law's Empire (1986), p.14.Google Scholar

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134. Idem, p.32.

135. This passage is a long—and close—paraphrase of Ann Rosalind Jones, “Writing the Body: Toward an Understanding of l'écriture féminine” (1981) 7 Feminist Studies 247, 255–256. Said refers to a similar argument by the writer, Wole Soyinka, as regards the concept of “négritude” in the context of the European–African opposition: Idem, p.229.

136. Said, Idem, p.31.

137. Hannah, Arendt, unpublished address, 1975, cited in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (1982), p.xi.Google Scholar

138. Italian law is itself but a representation concocted by Italian lawyers. See Pierre Legrand (1994) Camb.L.J. 607 (bk. rev. of Atias, op. cit. supra n.29).

139. Roderick Munday, “The Common Lawyer's Philosophy of Legislation” (1983) 14 Rechtstheorie 191.

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143. Arguably, this situation offers an instance of a wider cultural phenomenon. The intensity of contact between cultural groups often has the paradoxical consequence that it stimulates cultural diversity by confirming group members in their own identity. See Geert, Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations (1991), p.238Google Scholar; Michel de, Certeau, La culture au pluriel (1974), pp. 127–128.Google Scholar

144. Edward Coke, “To the Reader”, 4 Co.Rep. II at x (being the preface to the fourth of a collection of reports published between 1600 and 1616).

145. Jackson, Bernard S., “‘Legal Visions of the New Europe’: lus Gentium, lus Commune, European Law”, in Jackson, and McGoldrick, D. (Eds), Legal Visions of the New Europe (1993), p.34.Google Scholar

146. Fritz Pringsheim, “The Inner Relationship Between English and Roman Law” (1935) Camb.L.J. 347, 348.

147. Idem, p.365.

148. See Jolowicz, H. F., Lectures on Jurisprudence (Jolowicz, J. A. (Ed.) 1963), pp.127–129.Google Scholar

149. Montesquieu, , op. tit. supra n.101 (sub “Dossier de l'Esprit des Lois”), at p. 1025 (“ce n'est point le corps des lois que je cherche, mais leur âme”). These words are taken from a folder which Montesquieu had entitled “Choses qui n'ont pu entrer dans la Composition des Lois” (“Materials that could not fit into the writing of The Spirit of Laws”).Google Scholar

150. Richard, Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (1991). p.206.Google Scholar