The Future of Legal Families

Abstract

and KeywordsThe aim of this article is to give an account of legal families as a comparative law approach and as a classification of legal systems. The text discusses especially the future of legal families. The article begins with a short review of macro-comparative law's basic approaches and concepts. It then considers the past and present of the basic notions of macro-comparative law, focusing on the classification of legal families and the recent critique of them. Finally, this article examines the new roles of legal families and, in particular, it addresses the possible future utility of legal family as a basic notion and as an approach in macro-comparative law.

Recommended distances for physical distancing during COVID-19 pandemics reveal cultural connections between countries

“…We found that legal systems had a major effect in predicting the countries' recommended distance, even after controlling for confounding effects such as population density, previous colonizer country, language, and previous exposure to SARS-CoV-1. The legal system was originally divided into two families, common law, and civil law [44]. Common law emerged in England and spread among British colonies across the globe.…”

“…Noting that both the United States of America and the United Kingdom recommended 6 feet, we hypothesized that former British colonies or English-speaking countries may also tend to recommend such a distance. Along with this, given that the common law system emerged in medieval England and spread among British colonies across the globe [44], we tested whether the recommended distances varied according to the three main legal systems (civil, common, mixed). Finally, we hypothesized that countries who suffered SARS-CoV-1 cases in 2003 would possibly recommend a higher distance.…”

Complex Societies and the Growth of the Law

“…As demonstrated in "Clustering for comparative and dynamic analysis", however, qualitative analyses of the legal rules contained in our document networks can yield further insights, and this opens opportunities for normative legal research in areas such as comparative law and legal theory [39][40][41] . In these legal disciplines, the United States and Germany are usually classified as following different legal traditions, also referred to as legal families, and the categorization, though commonly accepted, has not been corroborated by empirical studies [42][43][44][45] . Last but not least, the findings reported in this paper are based on a set of choices for methods and parameters.…”

Complex Societies and the Growth of the Law

“…24 In these legal disciplines, Germany and the US are usually classified as following different legal traditions, also referred to as legal families, and the categorization, though com-monly accepted, has not been corroborated by empirical studies. [25][26][27] Finally, the findings reported in this paper are based on a set of choices for methods and parameters. For example, we examine growth by analysing year-to-year net gain of tokens, as this difference can be determined reliably.…”