Introducing and comparing different theories of legal sources and principles of interpretation in their legal cultural context, this volume deals with similarities and differences in legal argumentation as obstacles to and facilitators of harmonisation of law in Europe.
To gain a proper understanding of a foreign legal system, a legal scholar cannot rely on written sources alone. He must also familiarise himself with how these are interpreted and applied to hard cases. This is crucial to comparative studies and the harmonisation of law in Europe. However, materials explaining legal methods are often difficult to access for foreign lawyers, as they tend to be written in the national language and build on a series of unspoken preconceptions inherent to the specific legal order. It is therefore the purpose of this book to provide the comparative legal scholar with the tools to overcome some of these initial obstacles and gain a better understanding of how colleagues from different legal systems think about law.
The present volume gives an introduction to the legal methods of the countries in the Nordic and Germanic legal families, primarily addressed to foreign readers, thus explaining also those unspoken preconceptions. It further seeks historical and cultural explanations for present-day legal methods, and explores the impact of internationalisation as well as the possibility of a common European legal method.
Survey of contents
I: Translation strategies and historical background Ingrid Simonnæs: Legal comparison as a prerequisite to legal translation. The inherent interrelatedness between legal comparison and legal translation –
Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde: The legal cultural dependency of the Norwegian legal method and its future –
Dag Michalsen: Structural-historical features in 'the Norwegian legal method' –
Hans-Peter Haferkamp: Historical Conditions for the Contemporary Understanding of Legal Method in Germany
II: Legal argumentation in the Scandinavian and Germanic legal families Ingvill Helland/Sören Koch: Introduction to Norwegian legal method –
Sten Schaumburg-Müller: On Danish legal method –
Johan Boucht: Introduction to Finnish and Swedish legal method –
Ingvill Helland: Introduction to German legal method –
Stephan Hinghofer-Szalkay: Twins or estranged cousins? Legal Methodology in Austria vis-à-vis Germany –
Rafael Haecki: An introduction to the application of law in Switzerland
- Ingvill Helland/Sören Koch: Norwegian and German legal methods compared: Similarities and differences, their reasons and consequences
III: International influences Rainer Grote: Internationalisation of the German legal method –
Ingvill Helland/Sören Koch: International influences in Norwegian legal argumentation
IV: Theory in practice Thomas Thiede: Theory in practice – Lessons from Norway –
Kai Krüger: Implied terms or default guidelines – a Nordic contract law swamp area
V: Future developments Thomas Henninger: Legal Culture and Common Principles of European Legal Methods
