Scandinavian Law Research Articles

Dopuszczenie na rynek produktów leczniczych w wyroku Trybunału EFTA w sprawie E-16/14 Pharmaq AS przeciwko Intervet International BV

The publication is a commentary on an important judgment of the EFTA Court of April 9, 2015 regarding the scope of marketing authorization for vaccines or medicinal products. The first part presents the most important information and circumstances regarding the case. Later, you can find the questions that the Oslo District Court referred to the EFTA Court in Luxembourg. The following parts contain a detailed analysis of the EFTA Court's judgment and the author's commentary. I am convinced that by reading this article, every person interested in pharmaceutical law or veterinary law will be able to expand their knowledge. The publication may also prompt reflection on what beneficial solutions Polish law could derive from Scandinavian law.

How Icelandic Is French Law? A Few Remarks about the Discovery and Usage of Icelandic Antiquities in French Legal Historiography during the Nineteenth Century

How Icelandic Is French Law? A Few Remarks about the Discovery and Usage of Icelandic Antiquities in French Legal Historiography during the Nineteenth Century

Political and Legal Conditions of Marketing Activity of Businesses in the European Market

Abstract The article tackles the political and legal environment within the borders of the European Union (EU) member states. Determinants of the political and legal environment of the European market were identified on two levels: (1) the framework, i.e. supranational European political and legal conditions; (2) the classical political and legal environment of the EU member states. Afterwards, an analysis of individual factors of the political and legal environment in the aforementioned levels was performed. Four legal areas in the EU states were demonstrated: Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and mixed; three jurisdictional systems were identified: case law, continental and Scandinavian law; and the legal framework of the Union was found to consist of primary legislation, secondary legislation and adjudications of the Court of Justice of the EU. The problem of excessive duration of the administrative procedures, untimeliness and incomplete transposition of directives into the national law of the member states was discussed. It was also brought to attention that the diversity of laws and taxes is still a significant barrier to foreign operations of businesses in the EU internal market. It was also indicated that the integration of European law enables economic entities to perform marketing activities in the European market in the form of a representative office or a foreign branch without legal entity. Finally, it was stated that the factors of the political and legal environment are significantly unified in the supranational environment, while in the classical environment, there are some differences among the EU countries, but they allow for the use of unified marketing concepts, e.g. the concept of euromarketing.

Female Directors' Foreign Experience and Environmental and Sustainable Performance*

AbstractWe examine the impact of female directors' foreign experience on environmental and sustainable (ES) performance in Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2016. We find that female directors' foreign experience, especially work experience, significantly positively impacts firms' ES performance. The results are robust, and self‐selection concerns are addressed using the Heckman two‐step model and propensity score matching. Also, female directors' foreign experience impacts ES performance more significantly when female directors gain foreign experience from a Scandinavian law country or a civil law country. Overall, our results reveal that female directors with foreign experience transmit ES knowledge and practices to Chinese firms.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Default Risk Mitigation: The Moderating Role of the Legal Context

This paper explores the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on default risk in various institutional contexts. Using CSR scores and credit ratings for 1,153 firms from 45 countries, we find that CSR reduces the firm default risk level and that the effect is stronger in civil law countries, particularly German and Scandinavian law countries, than in common law countries. The environment component of CSR appears to have the highest impact on default risk. The results, which may prove useful to firms in their fight for survival, are robust using various measures and classifications.

Consumer Protection: The Interaction Between Written and Unwritten Law

The scope of consumer protection according to both written and unwritten law is assessed through an analysis of court decisions and decisions of the Consumer Complaints Board in Danish law with references to other Scandinavian law and to EU case law. The article analyses consumer protection in Scandinavian contract law according to general principles of interpretation and statutory law in the form of national legislation implementing Article 5 of Directive 93/13/EEC on unfair terms in consumer contracts. The so-called (larger) general clause of invalidity in the form of section 36 of the relevant national Contracts Acts is included as it greatly influences interpretation in Scandinavian contract law. The analysis involves a discussion of interpretation as a legal source in Scandinavian contract law, and a presentation of the Scandinavian consumer complaints board system with an emphasis on the Danish system. It is argued that the (traditional) general principles of interpretation in contract law play an important role as a supplement to written law in the aim of consumer protection, and that both courts and the Consumer Complaints Boards seem to operate with protection of consumers as a relevant underlying legal basis when interpreting consumer contracts. Both general rules of interpretation and the underlying legal basis (in the form of i.a. non-mandatory rules and customs) thereby seem to enhance consumer protection in Scandinavian contract law.

Determinants of the number of heavy metal musicians per capita

This study is a follow-up to the 2015 study titled ‘Determinants of the production of heavy metal music’. That study attempted to find an equation that would predict the number of heavy metal bands that each country had. That study was unable to arrive at a single equation, and double counting the output of musicians who were in more than one band was likely the reason. This study re-tests the variables that were found to be significant in the original study, some alternatives to those variables, and reconsiders some variables that were not found to be significant in the original study. To overcome the problem that the original study had with double counting the output of musicians who were in more than one band, this study uses the number of metal musicians per 100,000 people as the dependent variable rather than the number of heavy metal bands per 100,000 people. The independent variables considered in this study are as follows: the percentage of population with access to electricity, the number of unpaid parking tickets per UN diplomat during the period in which the City of New York was not enforcing parking violations on diplomats, the number of concert halls per million population, the Democracy Index, the percentage of the population who speak English, per capita electrical consumption, the average GDP per capita for the prior 3 years, the GINI index, latitude, life expectancy, Scandinavian Law, the average number of years of school that a citizen is expected to complete, the number of years the country was governed under constitutions that made reference to Marxism (with several variants capping the number of years at 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60), males between the ages of 15 and 24 as a percentage of the total population, males between the ages of 15 and 24 as a percentage of all males, the percentage of the population that identifies as Catholic and the percentage of the population that is not affiliated with a religion. The study found that changing the dependent variable from the number of metal bands per 100,000 to the number of metal musicians per 100,000 people did address the problem of double counting the output of some musicians; the original study was unable to arrive at a single equation as a model, this study was able to do that. This study and the original study arrived at the same significant independent variables: the number of concert halls per million population, latitude, Scandinavian law, Years Marxist, males between the ages of 15 and 24 as a percentage of the total population, the percentage of the population that identifies as Catholic and the percentage of the population that is not affiliated with a religion.

Personal Freedom in Estonian Marriage Law between 1918 and 1940

Although Estonia started to develop its own legal system after gaining independence in 1918, many of the old laws from the Russian Empire remained in force in the interim. Soon, Estonia started to develop its own civil code. The old Baltic Private Law Code was highly patriarchal, and various aspects of family law reform were extensively discussed throughout the 1920s and 1930s. While the need for reform was widely accepted, opinions as to its extent varied considerably: female lawyers, inspired by Scandinavian laws, fought for the greatest possible degree of freedom and equality between spouses, while conservative politicians preferred more moderate changes. The article examines two main questions connected with the developments of those times – how much freedom the state gave to spouses for regulating their personal and proprietary relations and how much personal freedom the wife had in comparison to the husband. The norms regulating personal relations, the statutory matrimonial property regime, and the contract related to marital property are analysed in connection with efforts to identify the merits and reasonable limits of personal freedom in marriage. The family law in force in the 1920s and 1930s is compared with draft forms of the Estonian Civil Code, for uncovering how the compilers of the new version achieved balance between modern liberal ideas of personal freedom and traditional concerns about upholding stability of marriage.

Breaching the Interpretative Wall between Private and Public Commercial Contracts

Abstract From a purely contractual perspective, this article reflects upon labour standard clauses with the objective to ensure that the fundamental ILO conventions and the International Bill of Human Rights are complied with throughout global value chains in respectively business-to-business (private), and public commercial contracts. The clauses are in both settings based widely on the same standards; however scholarship on the two types of contracts has been quite separate. The article reviews some Scandinavian case law concerning labour standard clauses and procurement regulation. It finds that contractual argumentation supported the outcome in these cases, isolates this argumentation, and reflects on whether contractual perspectives on the public contract might inspire current research on private contracts. It finally argues that an actual fusion is already taking place, wherefore contract lawyers may play an important role as to whether ‘the interpretative wall’ should be breached, or whether this is not feasible due to the distinctive characteristics of each contract.

What Does the Law Say?

The killings of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks raise the highly pertinent question: What is law in these cases? The more one reflects on the nature of the legal order in a well-ordered society, the closer one arrives at Justice Holmes’ statement: “The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law”. A similar approach to the question above was delivered by Dane Alf Ross (1899-1979), who expounded in a succinct form so called Scandinavian Law Realism.

Marginalia in Medieval Western Scandinavian Law Manuscripts

AbstractIn the present chapter, the design of select margins of late medieval Old Norse manuscripts containing the Icelandic ‘Jónsbók’, ‘Kristinréttr Árna biskups’ and Norwegian ‘Landslǫg’ law codes is addressed. In particular, it discusses the size and fillings of margins in these codices and the relation to their modes of use by original clients and later owners. Although it is well-known that Scandinavian law manuscripts contain a large number of notes written by both original and later users, the particular use of marginal spaces by original scribes and illuminators for glosses and other annotations and illuminations has scarcely been investigated to date. In my contribution, two distinctive features will be addressed: (1.) The different use of margins by Norwegian and Icelandic readers of the manuscripts, and (2.) the use of margins by illuminators surrounding the column(s) and incorporated initials.

Iskandinav Hukukunun Belirleyici Özellikleri ve Dünya Hukuk Çevreleri Içine Yerleştirilmesi Sorunu

This paper is divided into two parts. The first part of the study attempts to determine and explain the distinctive features of Scandinavian law. Scandinavian law, in the broad sense of the term, covers the laws of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland. In this respect, the historical developments of the laws of these countries, legal sources, judge-made law, interpretation, legal reasoning, pragmatism and realism which mark Scandinavian laws as their peculiar features as well as legal education, legal career and judiciary are taken account of. The second part of the study is an attempt to locate Scandinavian law among the classifications of legal systems of the world. Based on the significant features determined in the first part of the study, the second part attempts to demonstrate the distinct position of Scandinavian law which renders it impossible to be subsumed under common law or civil law families. Against this background, the merits of legal families theories will be questioned and the question whether the classical legal families approach is sufficiently overarching to accommodate atypical legal systems such as Scandinavian law will be raised. Within the scope of this query, recent proposals to classify legal systems - most of which reject the ‘law as rules’ approach - will be examined and evaluated in terms of their appropriateness to cover such atypical systems.

LEGAL SYSTEM OF FINLAND

the law of Finland is characterized by general features that are related to the legal systems of Nordic countries covered by the concept of Scandinavian law where the peculiarities of continental and common law are combined.

On Artificial Intelligence’s Razor’s Edge: On the Future of Democracy and Society in the Artificial Age

The introduction of Artificial Intelligence in our contemporary society imposes historically unique challenges for humankind. The emerging autonomy of AI holds unique potentials of eternal life of robots, AI and algorithms alongside unprecedented economic superiority, data storage and computational advantages. However, the introduction of AI to society also raises ethical questions. What is the social impact of robots, algorithms, blockchain and AI entering the workforce and our daily lives on the economy and human society? Should AI become eternal or is there a virtue in switching off AI at a certain point? If so, we may have to define a ‘virtue of killing’ and a ‘right to destroy’ that may draw from legal but also philosophical sources to answer the question how to handle the abyss of killing with ethical grace and fair style. In light of robots already having gained citizenship and being attributed as quasi-human under Common Law jurisdiction, should AI and robots be granted full citizen rights – such as voting rights? Or should we simply reap the benefits of AI and consider to define a democracy with different classes having diversified access to public choice and voting – as practiced in the ancient Athenian city state, which became the cradle of Western civilization and democratic traditions spread around the globe. Or should we legally justify AI slaves to economically reap their benefits, as was common in ancient Rome, which became the Roman Law legal foundation for Continental and some of Scandinavian Law traditions and which inspired very many different codifications around the world. Finally, we may also draw from the Code NapolA©on, the French Code Civil established under Napoleon in 1804, which defined male and female into two classes of human with substantial right and power differences, and – to this day – accounts for one of the few documents that have influenced the whole world in legal and societal ways. In asking critical questions and unraveling the ethical boundary conditions of our future artificial world, the paper thereby takes a descriptive – afar from normative – theoretical angle targeted at aiding a successful introduction of AI into our contemporary workforce, democracy and society.

On Artificial Intelligence’s Razor’s Edge: On the Future of Democracy and Society in the Artificial Age

The introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in our contemporary society imposes historically unique challenges for humankind. The emerging autonomy of AI holds unique potentials of eternal life of robots, AI and algorithms alongside unprecedented economic superiority, data storage and computational advantages. However, the introduction of AI to society also raises ethical questions. What is the social impact of robots, algorithms, blockchain and AI entering the workforce and our daily lives on the economy and human society? Should AI become eternal or is there a virtue in switching off AI at a certain point? If so, we may have to define a ‘virtue of killing’ and a ‘right to destroy’ that may draw from legal but also philosophical sources to answer the question how to handle the abyss of killing with ethical grace and fair style. In light of robots already having gained citizenship and being attributed as quasi-human under Common Law jurisdiction, should AI and robots be granted full citizen rights – such as voting rights? Or should we simply reap the benefits of AI and consider to define a democracy with different classes having diversified access to public choice and voting – as practiced in the ancient Athenian city state, which became the cradle of Western civilization and democratic traditions spread around the globe. Or should we legally justify AI slaves to economically reap their benefits, as was common in ancient Rome, which became the Roman Law legal foundation for Continental and some of Scandinavian Law traditions and which inspired very many different codifications around the world. Finally, we may also draw from the Code Napoleon, the French Code Civil established under Napoleon in 1804, which defined male and female into two classes of human with substantial right and power differences, and – to this day – accounts for one of the few documents that have influenced the whole world in legal and societal ways. In asking critical questions and unraveling the ethical boundary conditions of our future artificial world, the paper thereby takes a descriptive – afar from normative – theoretical angle targeted at aiding a successful introduction of AI into our contemporary workforce, democracy and society.

Liability for Means of Mass Transportation in Scandinavia

Abstract The article presents an overview of Norwegian law with regard to damages caused by means of mass transportation by buses, railways and airplanes. The author explains why and how in Norway, as elsewhere in Scandinavia, there is strict liability for damages caused by means of mass transportation. Also the assessment of damages in the mentioned categories is discussed. For personal injuries there are no caps for trains or buses, partly because a greater part of the loss of income is covered by social security benefits, something which is typical of the ‘Nordic model’. Along the same lines, the rules on contributory negligence favour the victim somewhat more than in other parts of Europe, with regard to accidents caused by both buses and trains. Hence the law is all in all rather friendly to the victim. As for damage caused by air traffic, there are tensions between the ‘victim-friendly’ attitude and the relevant EU regulations which make the Montreal Convention applicable to Scandinavian law. These tensions are discussed towards the end of the article. Thus the article highlights and illustrates how the Scandinavian legal culture with the ‘Nordic Model’ as its special hallmark endorses solutions that somewhat contradict the common solutions in continental Europe and in the UK.

Meat and Taboo in Medieval Scandinavian Law and Literature

This article applies the anthropological concept of taboo to meat-eating prohibitions in medieval Scandinavia. The goals of this article are threefold: to examine the evidence for meat-based dietar...

Gustav Ewers’ contribution to the study of the initial period of Ancient Rus’ history

The authors analyze the views of G. Ewers (1871-1830) on the history and the law of Ancient Rus’. Ewers’ main achievement is the criticism of the Norman theory. The article includes the characteristics of the following arguments: the inconsistency of the Swedish etymology of the word «Rus’»; the fallacy of the origination of the ancient Russian law out of the Scandinavian law. The basis of Ewers’ concept is the patrimonial theory. It reveals the natural course of the emergence of a state of Eastern Slavs. The scientist formulated the Khazar theory instead of the Norman theory. Ewers attributed the origin of Rus’ to the Northern Black Sea region. He believed that a large role in the formation of the Pontic Rus’ was played by the Khazar ethnos. Ewers also made a significant contribution to the study of the Russian Chronicles. He denounced Schloezer’s methodology, demonstrated the composite character of the Russian Chronicles. The authors show that Ewers’ ideas were highly appreciated by his contemporaries. Ewers’ criticism meant the end of the first wave of normanism. His insights remain important for the contemporary historiography against the background of the attempts of the resurgence of normanism.

Задачи правовой науки и как их решить

In the presented article there is the author’s opinion of how the legal science should function and what its subject is. Also the attitude is explained towards the proper methods and ways of legal scientific researching activity in the article. The author supposes these two items to be the most and vitally important for gaining the objectiveness and fruitful results of such kind of the mental activity. The author also thinks that during the recent times the imaginations, including the scientific ones, of the social aim of the legal science and law have been broken and have become false. It means that the influence of law on the society and on the relationship among the individuals is not proper now and law does not perfect them. It also means that, due to the above said, the results of the scientific research of law are not always objective nowadays and they do not reflect the reality. As an example the author demonstrates the outcome of the Scandinavian countries legal systems functioning. These results are positive thanks to the fact that the mentioned legal systems are aimed at the social prosperity and at providing the high standards of living, because the Scandinavian law are traditionally tightly connected with social targets of the northern European countries inhabitants. The author persists on his viewpoint that the success of law — making process completely depends upon the participation of the majority of the inhabitants in it. It might be realized through organizing and holding the referendums, talks between the authorities and the inhabitants, through the activity of the civil society institutions. Then the author formulates his recommendations of how to deal with scientific research in law, how to carry out it and how to work out the positive results of it through using them by both the beginners and by the experienced professionals. He tries to avoid the legal scholars’ false and mistaken methods of scientific research. Basing his recommendations on his own positive scientific legal research experience, the author of the article describes, explains and underlines the concrete positive and proper ways of researching, leading to the fundamental discovers in law.

O ROLI PRAWA RZYMSKIEGO W DAWNEJ RZECZYPOSPOLITEJ W ŚWIETLE „KURSU PRAWA CYWILNEGO POLSKIEGO” ALEKSANDRA MICKIEWICZA Z 1829 ROKU

Roman Law in Poland-Lithuania in the Light of Aleksander Mickiewicz’s 1829 Lecture on Polish Civil LawSummary The Polish Academy of Sciences library collection at Kórnik holds a manuscript with a lecture on Polish civil law and its history delivered by Aleksander Mickiewicz in 1829 at Krzemieniec School. This lecture provides us with a general idea of Mickiewicz’s views on the impact of Roman law on the development of Polish legal culture. Mickiewicz was rather critical of the views of Tadeusz Czacki, who had argued that Polish law was derived from Scandinavian law. Mickiewicz believed that Polish law under the early kings and princes of the Piast dynasty was a native creation, though subject to limited influence from Roman and German law. He held that Roman law originally came to Poland through canon law, but its influence was superficial. It was manifest in proceedings in the royal courts and in the borrowing of certain terms, which were sometimes used to designate purely indigenous legal institutions. This was also true of the usage of Roman terminology in Polish medieval chronicles. Mickiewicz saw the Roman elements in the 14th-century Statutes of Casimir the Great as an erudite display by their authors or as later additions to the original collection. Mickiewicz also devoted much attention to Lithuanian law. In particular, he showed that the Lithuanian Statutes were subject to the influence of many foreign systems of law including a number of elements borrowed from Roman law (wills, disinheritance, the penalty for parricide). Mickiewicz was convinced that Roman law appeared in the Grand Duchy at the same time as German law, and in connection with Lithuanian peregrinations for study abroad.