The Impact of Ideas on Legal Development

How have social and philosophical ideas influenced the development of tort law in Europe?

Michael Lobban (Edited by), Julia Moses (Edited by)

9781107475601, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 July 2014

310 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.42 kg

This book explores the intellectual contexts in which the development of tort law took place in Europe. With contributions from legal theorists, social and intellectual historians and comparative lawyers, it examines how conceptions of community and responsibility changed over time, providing a context both for new notions of the role of the state in protecting its citizens and for new interpretations of older private law concepts. The book also examines how the law of tort was shaped and applied by judges in the codified and uncodified systems, comparing the common law system of England with the systems in France and Germany, whose codes were created in very different contexts. The book includes chapters that look at the role of experts in shaping the law's response to workplace hazards and concludes with a discussion of the role of academic networks in developing the notion of a European private law.

1. Introduction Michael Lobban and Julia Moses
2. Responsibility, solidarity and state regulation in classical continental social theory Roger Cotterrell
3. Individual and social responsibility in nineteenth-century British political thought Sandra den Otter
4. The 'welfare state' in legal and social philosophy: origins and controversies José Harris
5. Continental European jurisprudence, 1850–2000 John Bell
6. English jurisprudence and tort theory Michael Lobban
7. The left and wrongs: Marxism, law and torts Christine Sypnowich
8. The process of codification applied to the law of delicts Jean-Louis Halpérin
9. Codifications, commentators, and courts in tort law: the perception and application of the Civil Code and the Constitution by the German legal profession Nils Jansen
10. The English codification debate and the role of jurists in the development of legal doctrines Alexandra Braun
11. Regulating workplace hazards: the role of medical, scientific and technical experts in legal change P. W. J. Bartrip
12. Expertise and the evolution of private law: the case of occupational illness in twentieth-century France Paul-André Rosental
13. The notion of a European private law and a softer side to harmonisation Lucinda Miller.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Comparative law [LAM], Law [L]