Law In Rome Research Articles

The influence of Roman law on the modern change of the legal paradigm

Roman law occupies a unique place in the legal history of mankind. It represents the highest degree in the development of law in ancient society and in the ancient world as a whole.
 It is distinguished, first of all, by an extremely wide coverage of the most diverse life relationships and situations. Various methods of protecting the interests of private owners, and even various participants in property turnover, were especially carefully developed in Roman law. It was the Romans, relying on all the previous world experience, including the countries of the East, who for the first time made individual private property, as well as other property rights and interests, the subject of skillful and perfect legal regulation. According to the results of Roman law, which was distinguished by the great development of its forms, the richest legal culture was formed, which became the common property of humanity in the following stages of the development of civilization.
 One of the elements of legal culture was Roman jurisprudence, which initiated both an independent science of law and professional legal education.
 The private law of Rome had a great influence on the subsequent history of law, and was adopted by many legal systems in the medieval era and in modern times. The achievements of Roman jurisprudence are also used in law and legal science even in those countries of the world where there is no division of law into public and private.
 The uniqueness of Roman law also lies in the fact that the Romans managed to create universal, rational legal formulas, which later formed the basis of European civilization. For the first time, law-making was separated from its religious-mythological beginning, and law acquired not only an independent meaning, but began to be considered as the basis of civil order, a way to ensure the progress of society.

Professor of Kharkiv University A. M. Stoyanov as a historian of law

Introduction. The article highlights the main milestones of the professional development of Kharkiv University professor A. Stoyanov and his scientific activity in the field of history of law. It was found that modern researchers who, in the course of their scientific research, turned to the analysis of his works, for certain reasons, emphasize primarily the work of the scientist in the field of international law, but usually do not pay any attention to the extremely wide range of historical and legal research of the scientist, which in his scientific creativity, he himself took far from the last place in terms of importance and volume. This is what determined the topic of this article. Summary of the main results of the study. It is noted that one of the most interesting historical and legal works by A. Stoyanov's monograph "History of Advocacy among Ancient Peoples", in which the monuments of law and legal thought of Egypt, India, ancient Jews, Greeks and Romans were analyzed. The embryo of the Institute of Advocacy A. Stoyanov saw precisely in the ancient Greek synegory. His historical and legal studies "Historical analogies and points of intersection of new legislation with ancient law", "The beginnings of family law among primitive peoples", "Family law and inheritance among Jews" and published by the publishing house of Kharkiv University in separate brochures aroused considerable interest among scientists and students of that time, "Family, marriage, and the legal position of women according to the legislative monuments of India", "Customary law in the history of the most important states of Europe and especially France", "Customs of society and courts in France from the end of the 17th century. until 1789". A certain result of this stage of his studies of ancient law was the publication of the author's lectures devoted to the history of the legislation of the countries of the East. Some scientific research carried out by Professor Stoyanov at one time caused heated discussions and controversies. Among these, first of all, we can mention the work "Historical analogies and points of intersection of new legislation with ancient law", which was published in 1883 and was an extremely interesting attempt at diachronic comparative research, one of the first that was carried out in the universities of Eastern Europe. He was an ardent supporter of comparative and especially historical methods of studying legal institutions. He used them widely when writing his scientific works. The scientist published a significant part of his works in the journal "Notes of the Kharkiv University". One of the most interesting historical and legal studies, which has not lost its relevance even today, is the work "Criminal Law of Rome from the earliest times to Justinian inclusive", published here in 1895. Conclusion. The conclusion that A. Stoyanov was a bright representative of that generation of lawyers of the Kharkiv school, whose work created the foundation of the modern national science of the history of law. His works, which during the Soviet era were forgotten for ideological reasons and only briefly mentioned by researchers, contain many layers of valuable historical and legal information and deep scientific conclusions. The merits of the scientist in the future have yet to be fully assessed by the next generation of lawyers.

The influence of Roman law on the modern change of the legal paradigm

Roman law occupies a unique place in the legal history of mankind. It represents the highest degree in the development of law in ancient society and in the ancient world as a whole.
 It is distinguished, first of all, by an extremely wide coverage of the most diverse life relationships and situations. Various methods of protecting the interests of private owners, and even various participants in property turnover, were especially carefully developed in Roman law. It was the Romans, relying on all the previous world experience, including the countries of the East, who for the first time made individual private property, as well as other property rights and interests, the subject of skillful and perfect legal regulation. According to the results of Roman law, which was distinguished by the great development of its forms, the richest legal culture was formed, which became the common property of humanity in the following stages of the development of civilization.
 One of the elements of legal culture was Roman jurisprudence, which initiated both an independent science of law and professional legal education.
 The private law of Rome had a great influence on the subsequent history of law, and was adopted by many legal systems in the medieval era and in modern times. The achievements of Roman jurisprudence are also used in law and legal science even in those countries of the world where there is no division of law into public and private.
 The uniqueness of Roman law also lies in the fact that the Romans managed to create universal, rational legal formulas, which later formed the basis of European civilization. For the first time, law­making was separated from its religious-mythological beginning, and law acquired not only an independent meaning, but began to be considered as the basis of civil order, a way to ensure the progress of society.

THE EVOLUTION OF SURETYSHIP IN ROMAN AND RUSSIAN LAW OF OBLIGATIONS

Introduction. The authors analyzes the historical development of the suretyship in the law of Ancient Rome and Russia. It is generally accepted that traditional private law institutions, which are also means of securing obligations, penetrated into Russian law through double reception – after their development in German and French law. Meanwhile, the suretyship was not created by Roman lawyers from scratch, it replaced the barbaric ways of securing the interests of the creditor based on hostage, debt bondage and others. The same methods evolved in ancient Russian law into an independent institution of bail. Purpose. The purpose of this study is to generalize and systematize knowledge about the historical development of the institution of suretyship in Roman private law and Russian law. Despite a long evolution, in modern Russian law the suretyship loses its accessory features that have been formed for more than two millennia, and acquires signs of abstractness. In this regard, it is important to determine the constitutive features of the legal relationship of surety to identify the trajectory of the subsequent development of the institution of personal securing of obligations. Methodology. In carrying out this study, general scientific and private law methods were used, including the system-structural method, methods of functional and historical-legal analysis. Results. Personal security of civil obligations arose in the legal space from the artificial creation of a correal plurality on the side of the debtor, which quickly outlived itself in view of the impossibility of achieving the goal of security – the proper guaranteeing effect for the lender. With the development of private law in Rome, the evolution of the institution of suretyship is visible – from the verbal forms of confirmation of third party debt and sureties for it, implemented by citizens in the form of sponsio, to the late form of fideiussor’s financial responsibility, tending to the modern model of guarantee. Russian suretyship develops from the universal institute of bail, mentioned even in the sources of law of the princely period. The bail was applied in all kinds of, not only private law relations, and was used as a general basis for third party liability. With the complication of civil relations, bail also develops as a means of personal security of the obligation, and by the beginning of reception of Roman law, the Russian suretyship naturally reached similarities with personal security in the sources of this reception – German and French law of obligations. The Russian suretyship of the XIX century becomes an independent obligation, the parties to which are the creditor and the surety, while the surety is not a co-borrower in the secured obligation and does not fulfill the main obligation as an intercession, the right of claim from the creditor passes to it, and the guarantor's liability, presumed as subsidiary, is realized only in cash. The further development of Russian suretyship, unfortunately, indicates the use of more pro-creditor approaches, which was caused by the unsatisfactory contractual discipline of the parties to civil legal relations. Conclusion. In the process of its evolution, surety remains the most used, and, in fact, the only universal way of personal securing obligations, despite the permanent attempts of scientists and law enforcement to introduce other means into civil relations. Recognizing the special significance of the suretyship, it is important to preserve the traditional constitutive features of this institution.

Esencia y apariencia de las relaciones sociales: colonos y propietarios en el imperio romano

La historiografía ha analizado tradicionalmente el problema del arrendamiento de tierras en la Antigua Roma desde una perspectiva formalista, caracterizando el lazo social entre el colono y el propietario únicamente desde el punto de vista contractual, como dos sujetos autónomos que establecen una relación de manera voluntaria y libre. Pero la estrechez de tal enfoque, derivado principalmente de la gran importancia que tuvo el desarrollo del derecho en Roma, no resulta suficiente a la hora de explicar diferentes fenómenos que se pueden apreciar en las fuentes, donde también se observan rasgos de dependencia “personal” en la relación entre arrendatarios y propietarios. Al analizar estos aspectos, veremos que no suponen la inexistencia del interés económico en este tipo de relaciones, sino que su razón de ser es precisamente la de ocultar este interés para su efectiva realización. Se trata de formas aparenciales, aunque necesarias, que el interés económico adquiere en las sociedades precapitalistas, y que éstas se ufanan por ocultar.

1111 and Canon Law in Rome

1111 and Canon Law in Rome Uta-Renate Blumenthal With the Concordat of Worms of September 1122 the bitter struggle between the reformed papacy and the Empire over investiture of ecclesiastics with ring and crozier came practically to an end.1 To be sure, it was a compromise as Robert Benson phrased it,2 but it endured despite occasional attempts from either the papal or the imperial side to introduce advantageous changes. Ernst Bernheim showed in a detailed textual analysis that the agreements exchanged in 1122 at Worms were based on the records of two earlier attempts to settle the burning issues that destroyed the traditional harmony of regnum and sacerdotium: the negotiations in February and April 1111 in Rome and of 1119 at Mouzon.3 This paper will focus on the first set of these, since [End Page 157] they form an often neglected but illuminating aspect of the background to the Concordat of Worms. In August 1110 King Henry V set out for Rome for his imperial coronation, accompanied by an unusually large army.4 Henry's chancellor, Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz, and lay magnates were sent by the king from Aquapendente as emissaries to Rome. They met in February 1111 with representatives of Paschal II, chief among them Petrus Leonis (Pierleone). The delegations negotiated in the church of Santa Maria in Turri, a part of the complex of the basilica of St. Peter's. The location was not chosen by accident as this paper will show, for nearby were three bronze portals leading into the basilica inscribed with the names of the possessions of St. Peter's, its patrimonium.5 On February 4 the imperial party presented Henry's promise, a document to be exchanged with Paschal during Henry's coronation as emperor, envisioned for February 12. 'Rex scripto refutabit omnem investituram omnium ecclesiarum in manu domni pape … in die coronationis sue … Et postquam domnus papa fecerit de regalibus sicut in alia carta scriptum est …'. read the most significant sentences in the [End Page 158] imperial document,6 supported by oaths there and then, and by an oath on behalf of Henry V on February 9 at Sutri.7 The alia carta is Paschal's promise, as first formulated on his behalf by Petrus Leonis on February 4 at S. Maria, and repeated in similar but briefer form in Paschal's Privilegium primae conventionis intended for Henry's imperial coronation.8 This 'other document' to be granted in exchange for the long wished-for renunciation of investiture by Henry V contained an order to the bishops present at the coronation to return the regalia to the king and to the kingdom, with the famous definition of what constituted the regalia:9 Civitates, ducatus, marchias, comitatus, monetae, teloneum, mercatum advocatias regni, iura centurionum et curtes quae [manifeste] regni errant, cum pertinentiis suis, militiam et castra [regni]. On the day of the planned coronation, February 12, these documents were to be exchanged by the two parties. But what should have been a highpoint of Paschal's reign, Henry's renunciation of investiture, turned into a 'dramatic … fiasco'.10 Violent opposition to Paschal's proposal prevented the coronation, and by nightfall the pope and almost all cardinals—including Cardinal Gregory of S. Grisogono, author of the canonical collection Polycarpus11—were captured and imprisoned by the king and his army.12 After two months of [End Page 159] captivity Paschal II abandoned the fight for the liberty of the church as formulated during the Gregorian reform. At Ponte Mammolo on April 11 he granted Henry V the imperial crown and the customary right of investiture, in a privilege that was known almost immediately as the Pravilegium and could have meant the end of Paschal's pontificate if not calmer voices like that of Ivo of Chartres had prevailed.13 'It is hardly possible to imagine the consequences the planned action [regarding the regalia] would have had for the government and for the economy', concluded Tellenbach.14 Fried emphasized that the regalia that were to be returned, 'Herrschaftsrechte, Gerechtsame und Grundbesitz', constituted the essential parts of the regnum, the kingdom, and stood in contrast to everything that did not pertain to...

Sacred Stimulus: Jerusalem in the Visual Christianization of Rome by Galit Noga-Banai

Reviewed by: Sacred Stimulus: Jerusalem in the Visual Christianization of Rome by Galit Noga-Banai Maya Maskarinec Galit Noga-Banai Sacred Stimulus: Jerusalem in the Visual Christianization of Rome Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity New York: Oxford University Press, 2018 Pp. 256. $85.00. Noga-Banai's Sacred Stimulus is written to engage two types of readers: the art historian and the historian. Art historians will relish in the precision with which Noga-Banai presents and describes mosaics, sarcophagi, wall paintings and other visual material, her constructive engagement with older scholarship (helpfully well-documented in the extensive footnotes), and the nuanced and surprising readings that emerge. These are case studies that can productively be read on their own terms, even as they are interwoven into a larger and more ambitious historical thesis about the subtle, but significant influence of the earthly Jerusalem on art in Rome in the fourth to mid-fifth century. This review focuses on that thesis from a historian's perspective. Noga-Banai's preface begins with a charming vignette of a modern sculpture, "Second Temple: Jerusalem-Rome-Jerusalem," overlooked by all but the most attentive (or well-informed) viewers: a concave hourglass carved into a sidewalk in what was formerly the Jewish ghetto of Rome. This "miniment," as its artist Micha Ullman terms it, though easy to overlook, is nevertheless subtly present in the urban fabric of the city. Similarly, so Sacred Stimulus argues, Jerusalem was present, as a visual idea, in late antique Rome—despite the fact that, as the author readily admits, its traces are as difficult, if not more, to identify. Most ambitiously, Noga-Banai contends that careful visual analysis can reveal an engagement with Jerusalem—and even a shifting argument about its meaning and importance vis-à-vis Rome—that has left no trace in the textual record. As she eloquently expresses it, "Visual rhetoric can help us to see the absence of words and decipher the presence of silence" (5). In itself this is a plausible and credible thesis, even if readers will not all be equally persuaded by the specific relationships between Rome and Jerusalem that Noga-Banai posits. The starting points for Noga-Banai's analysis are a historical claim, namely that "[i]n order to stake its claim to be the head of the Church . . . Rome had to overcome [not only Constantinople but] another much more complicated obstacle as well: Jerusalem" (4), and a first-century Roman monument: the Arch of Titus and its representation of the Temple spoils. Rome's claim to these sacred treasures, in addition to Rome's acquisition of relics of the True Cross, were, according to Noga-Banai, the stimuli for Rome's attempts to establish its superiority to Jerusalem. Specifically, in chapter 1, she suggests that the presence of a copy of the Mosaic law in Rome influenced late fourth-century depictions of the Dominus legem dat scene as found in a mosaic from the mausoleum of S. Constanza and a wall painting from the catacomb under the Villa Torlonia. With respect to the S. Constanza mosaic she argues that it "pictures the significant eschatological event of ingathering, which is to take place on Mount Zion, as in [End Page 338] fact taking place in Rome" (29). Then in chapter 2, in a similar vein, she draws a relationship between Roman compositions showing the adoration of the elevated Christogram by Peter and Paul and Cyril of Jerusalem's account that emphasizes Jerusalem as the home of the True Cross. In turn, Noga-Banai posits that there was a change in Rome's relationship to Jerusalem from the late fourth century onward, once "Rome finally established itself as a pilgrimage center as sacred as Jerusalem" (139). This trajectory is explored through Pope Damasus's attention to martyrs' tombs (juxtaposed with Cyril of Jerusalem's efforts to "Christianize" Jerusalem), the imperial reconstruction of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, and portable art of the fifth century. Depictions of Christian Jerusalem in fifth-century Rome (in the mosaics of S. Pudenziana and S. Maria Maggiore and the architecture of S. Stefano Rotondo) register, according to Noga-Banai, Rome's embrace of Jerusalem "with the strong arm of...

Mátyás seregéből az Úr szolgálatába. Esettanulmány az Apostoli Penitenciária klerikusszentelésekben játszott szerepéhez Mátyás király korában

The main character of this present study is Gaspar Bak from Berend, provost of Szepes/ Spis (1464–1493). Aft er he had fought in the army of King Matthias against the Hussites and the Ottomans, the cleric of the Diocese of Csanad decided on the embracing of ecclesiastic orders. Th e young men, who has previously studied in Vienna, Ferrara and Bologna handed in three appeals to the Sacra Poenitentiaria Apostolica, in which he asked to be released from the obstacles preventing his ordination. He received the permission in December of 1469. Aft er that, he was consecrated a deacon in Bologna, and three years later when he gained the degree in canon law in Rome, he was ordained as a priest. On the basis of the materials collected in the archives in Rome, this present work makes and attempt to elaborate the circumstances of this extremely well-documented promotion placing it in an international context.

The Human Foetus as a Legal Person

This article is meant to amplify and update the author's article published as "Natural Law, our Constitutions, and the Unborn", (1996) 27 Revue générale de droit, 21-53. Particular emphasis is laid on the judicial revolution initiated by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Montréal Tramways Co. case in 1933, and led by the American legal scholar, William Prosser. By about 1955, courts across North America generally came to recognize in the field of torts, and in private litigation generally, the existence of unborn children as legal persons from and after conception. The author shows that this judicial revolution was nothing but a recognition of an ancient rule of the civil law of Rome, restated by Tribonian in the 6th century, and acknowledged also by the common law of England on repeated occasions before and after the American Revolution. The author shows furthermore that this rule should have prevented the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and its Canadian progeny, but was ignored. The author allows that humanity and justice, no less than legal tradition, may necessitate some concessions in criminal proceedings. But he illustrates, by reference to recent and tragic decisions in the United States and Canada, why the civil liberties of us all, demand a reaffirmation of the ancient rule that, in all private ligitation, the human foetus must be protected as a legal person from and after conception.

Formation of Roman Law in Monarchy

Monarchy has started with the establishment of the city of Rome in 753 B.C. and lasted until 510 B.C. Having settled on Seven Hills, Romans found here local inhabitants and their civilisation which was marked by pagi (the composition of a settlement), gentes (families), and clients belonging to it. Romans have strengthened the institute of a family without abolishment of relations between gentes. The date of city foundation was when the first king Romulus organised the society of the city by dividing it into patricians and plebeians. In Monarchy, when Etruscans have implemented reforms, Rome has expanded from a city to a state. In 6 A.D., sacred rites involved a primitive Roman law. At international level, in words of nowadays, the Law of Fetial taken over from other nations and appreciated by Romans in practice has been functioning. It lasted for eight centuries. Law is analysed with the attempts to determine its impact on culture. How did the developing law of Rome manage to influence the culture of other nations? “In Rome, script appeared in 6 A.D.” 1 . Though, there are no written documents from the period of the city of Rome. Leges regiae has been restored from other documents. More historical monuments, witnessing about the culture of the city of Rome, have been remained.

Emotional arenas: from provincial circus to national courtroom in late nineteenth-century Italy

This article investigates a revealing moment in Italian history, during which a court of law in Rome became a complex arena of emotions. Building on Barbara Rosenwein's concept of ‘emotional communities', the analysis presents the trial as an episode in which divergent communities' styles were adjudicated as part of an attempt to establish more uniform emotional standards for a relatively new polity. The murder victim, a circumspect official based in the capital, and his assassin, an exuberant circus acrobat from the distant provinces, represented different communities within the national fabric, and embodied opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. The court exalted the victim's self-control and condemned the murderer's unmediated emotional exploits. Yet, the trial was not a simple object lesson in restraint vanquishing emotion. Instead, the analysis focuses on the way the state, eager to garner the legitimacy deriving from keen public participation in its processes, trod a fine line between the sober decorum of a court of law and the emotional colour of an ancient Roman circus. Ultimately, this case study suggests that for historians the task of discerning ‘emotional communities' is complicated by the fact that any such community is likely to be fraught with fault lines, among which variables such as gender, class, and geographical region are intersected by more volatile factors such as personal opportunity, social context, and historical moment.

Protecting and Respecting Civilians

There is a gap between the international humanitarian law of Geneva and the international criminal law of Rome, a gap between the law we have and the law we need if we are to “ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population” caught in the midst of armed conflict. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court fails to fully enforce four core principles of humanitarian law designed to protect civilians: distinction, discrimination, necessity, and proportionality. As a result, it is possible for a combatant with a culpable mental state, without justification or excuse, and in violation of humanitarian law, to kill civilians, yet escape criminal liability under the Rome Statute. The Rome Statute also ignores or misapplies three fundamental criminal law distinctions: between conduct offenses and result offenses, between material elements and mental elements, as well as between offenses and defenses. These distinctions are not empty formalisms but rather are the means by which any system of criminal law gives expression to its underlying moral values. The purpose of this article is to expose these defects and propose a way to overcome them. Drawing on contemporary criminal law theory, it offers a new approach to war crimes against civilians, one that better protects and respects the value of civilian life. This article proposes a redefined offense of Willful Killing that fully incorporates the principles of distinction and discrimination as well as a new affirmative defense that fully incorporates the principles of necessity and proportionality. Only by adopting such an approach can international criminal law provide civilians the legal protection and moral recognition they deserve. The recent adoption of an operative definition of the crime of aggression during a Review Conference in June 2010 suggests that further reform of the Rome Statute is achievable.

Identification of 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine analogs encountered in clandestine tablets

Recently, 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine derivatives have been encountered in the Italian illicit market, mainly in form of tablets. Among this class of substances small modifications of the molecule may result in a wide range of derivatives and analogs some of which are not yet listed as controlled substances in the Italian schedules. Due to the structural similarity some of these molecules have a gas chromatographic behavior and mass spectra that only slightly differ. In the present work, an analytical strategy is proposed to achieve the identification of analogs within this class of molecules. In seized material sent by the Court of Law of Rome to our laboratories a number of tablets engraved with different symbols (e.g., `Dollar', `Fido Dido' and `Bomb') were submitted to analysis in order to establish whether they contained drugs of abuse. The analytical techniques employed for this purpose were UV spectrophotometry and thin-layer chromatography which provided information suggesting that the tablets contained a methylenedioxyamphetamine. Gas chromatography with flame ionization detection indicated that the main ingredient differed from the molecules of the same class already known. Finally, capillary gas chromatographic–mass spectrometric analysis of the native molecules and their pentafluoropropionic acid derivatives, performed with both, electron impact and chemical ionization, allowed the identification, in each tablet, of three molecules: the N-methyl-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-2-butanamine (MDP-2-MB, MBDB), the 1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-2-butanamine (MDP-2-B) and the N, N-dimethyl-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-2-butanamine (MDP-2-MMB).

The Criminal Law of Ancient Rome.

Although the Romans lived in a society very different from ours, they were like us in fearing crime and in hoping to control it by means of the law. Ordinary citizens wanted protection from muggers in the streets or thieves at the public baths. They demanded laws to punish officials who abused power or embezzled public monies. Even emperors, who feared plotters and wanted to repress subversive ideas and doctrines, looked to the law for protection. In the first book in English to focus on the substantive criminal law of ancient Rome, O. F. Robinson offers a lively study of an essential aspect of Roman life and identity. Robinson begins with a discussion of the framework within which the law operated and the nature of criminal responsibility. She looks at the criminal law of Rome as it was established in the late Republic under Sulla's system of standing jury-courts. Grouping offenses functionally into five chapters, she examines crimes committed for gain, crimes involving violence, sexual offenses, offenses against the state, and offenses against the due ordering of society.

Common Law Marriage

The expression “common law marriage” has layers of paradox. It now denotes, as Mr. J. C. Hall pointed out in a recent article in this Journal, a relationship whose characteristic is precisely that it is extra-marital. Previously, for many centuries, the validity of such a marriage was a matter not for the common but the canon law and so, before the Reformation, for the canon law of Rome, the ius commune, Maitland's “wonderful system” administered by the courts Christian and directly applicable throughout western Christendom. The story of the common law marriage in England, Scotland and Ireland offers glimpses of great historical processes and-provides a wider context in which to consider the question raised by Mr Hall as to the survival, or revival, of the common law marriage in England.

Contratos reais e o princípio do consensualismo

The purpose of this paper is to make a distinction between real and consensual contracts, especially in the light of the consent principle, in order to question, conclusively, whether the differentiation is void, should be maintained or should be dispensed with. In the development of this paper, first the Roman source is explored, through the examination of the contracts and the evolution of Contractual Law in Rome. The thematic questioning then enters into the Middle Ages and reaches the Modern Age, the latter period marked by the abandonment of rigid forms, the contract being completed by mere consent. Secondly, a criticism is raised concerning the excessively broad application of the consent principle, witch impairs other revigorated principles found in Contract Law such as the principle of the social function of the contract. In support of the criticism, an analysis of real in specie is later made - loan, commodatum, deposit, always seeking forms of expression for the Roman equivalents. In conclusion, divergent doctrinary opinions on the fundamental thesis are outlined: does the distinction between consensual and real still subsist? And, in view of the foregoing it is concluded that there are insufficient grounds for abolishing the distinction, ratifying positions assumed in the course of the study such as the following: the consent principle is present in all types of contracts; it is, therefore, also found in real contracts, in spite of the fact that it is said of the latter that they are only completed with the delivery of the thing. Without such delivery, there is no void contract, for a contract does not even exist. Without delivery, the real contract will merely be in the process of being completed, although already marked by the consent principle.

Customary and Statutory Law in Rome

It is a truism to say that the characteristics of a legal system, in the social and political not less than in the technical field, depend mainly on the nature of its sources of law. If we confine our attention to Roman law, we may state that its achievements, as well as its failures were the consequence of the ways by which it was formed and developed throughout its long history.The importance of this statement is enhanced by the fact that the Roman attitude to sources of law was apparently different from that of most ancient and modern legal systems. In particular, customary rules are said to have had a greater part in the creation and development of Roman law than of other legal systems. It would be misleading, however, to presume that the sources of Roman law, and the role of custom among them, remained unchanged during the course of Roman history.Accordingly, at the very outset two points emerge, which merit discussion: (1) What was the part of customary rules and statutes in the creation and development of Roman law; (2) Whether, or how far, their relation changed from one period to another.

The Principles of Equity as a Source of World Law

Pindar said that law is king. Gény called law the primordial necessity of order in social life. It is impossible to conceive of a time since men first organized in tribes when law was not a vital force in cementing society together within social groups; yet in the relations of national States with each other we continue to rely on force instead of mutual understanding to establish international order. Those who ignore history, Santayana has said, must pay the penalty of repeating it. Today we are approaching with terrifying speed the point at which the weapons we have created and upon which we rely for world peace threaten to destroy their creators. The force of destiny compels us to seek within ourselves, as did the Prophets of Israel, the source of world peace. What I wish to propose is the utilization of the fundamental principles of law which are common to most nations to establish a closer international understanding as a step toward world peace; and more specifically the employment of the principles of equity as a corpus aequitatis to constitute the basis of a world legal order.The idea of a universal law has appeared many times in history. In the seventeenth book of the Iliad Homer speaks of law as related to a larger whole. The Greek Stoics found the basis of universality in the laws of nature as interpreted by reason, a law which Cicero was later to describe as “lex sempiterna et immutabilis.” Kant conceived of a Weltbürgerrecht, a cosmopolitan law, as an essential goal of human progress. Early in the eighteenth century Giambattista Vico, whom Croce has called the germ of the nineteenth century, proposed to unite law, politics, economics and philosophy in “una gran citta del monde”. There have been moments in history when the idea of a law which would unite nations found practical expression. The ius gentium, that part of the local law of Rome which was basically in accord with the private law of other nations, contributed, perhaps as much as the arms of Roman legions, to the Pax Romana which prevailed for centuries in much of the civilized world. The Pandectenrechtswissenschaft, the law of the Pandects modified by infusion of Germanic law, prevailed for nearly three hundred years among a group of national and semi-autonomous States stretching across central Europe. But the Pax Romana crumbled before the barbarian invasions of the third century of the Christian era, and after the end of the seventeenth century the law of the Pandects split into many separate systems. A contemporary example of law uniting nations is the experience of four Scandinavian countries, of five different ethnic stocks, joined in a unified legal system based largely on indigenous customary law.

The United States Joins the Hague Conference on Private International Law: A "History" with Comments

On the basis of enabling legislation passed at the end of i963,1 the United States has joined as a full member two noted international institutions dedicated to work on unification of private law: the Hague Conference on Private International Law whose origins go back to the end of the last century, and the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law in Rome which Italy set up in the nineteenthirties to assist the League of Nations in work on unification of law. Participation by the United States as a member constitutes a major development, domestically and internationally. A long policy of not collaborating in this kind of endeavor came, finally, to an end, though too late to have an immediate impact on an ambitious project in course, unification of the law on the international sale of goods. We shall revert to this project in due course.

The Hague Conference on the Unification of Sales Law

The Hague Conference on the Unification of Sales Law Ernst Rabel Ernst Rabel 1Ernst Rabel was the first director of the Institut der Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht, Berlin. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Journal of Comparative Law, Volume 1, Issue 1-2, Winter-Spring 1952, Pages 58–69, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/1.1-2.58 Published: 01 February 1952