scholarly journals Property beyond princely authority: the intellectual and legal roots of Ulrik Huber’s fundamental law

Author(s):  
Gustaaf van Nifterik

In this paper I argue for a rule-of-law-reading of Ulrik Huber’s fundamental law on freedom of property. My aim is to show that there is enough contemporary intellectual and legal context for such a reading. I do so by arguing along three lines: the medieval tradition that rooted the origin of private property in natural law, protection of property in the constitution of Holland in the seventeenth century, and property rights protected by fundamental law in English common law.


Legal Theory ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Austin

This paper offers a new framework for thinking about the relationship between the common law of property and the rule of law. The standard way of framing this relationship is within the terms of the form/substance debate within the literature on the rule of law: Does the rule of law include only formal and procedural aspects or does it also encompass and support substantive rights such as private property rights and civil liberties? By focusing on the nature of common-law reasoning, I wish to question the form/substance dichotomy that frames this debate and to show that the formal aspects of the rule of law are in fact principles widely adopted within the practice of common-law reasoning and as such play a large role in shaping the substantive content of common-law property rights. Understanding this has implications beyond the relationship between property law and the rule of law.


Author(s):  
Anthony Carty

The view that no form of international law existed in seventeenth-century France, and that this time was a part of ‘prehistory’, and thus irrelevant for international legal thought today is challenged. In addition, the traditional claim of Richelieu to be an admirer of Machiavelli and his Ragion di Stato doctrine to the detriment of the aim of concluding treaties and keeping them (as sacred), is refuted by careful historical research. In Richelieu’s thinking, there is a role for law to play but it is law as justice, law in the classical natural law tradition. Those who rule are subject to the rule of law as justice, the rule of God, or the rule of reason. In Richelieu’s world, kings and ministers are rational instruments of the practical implementation of God’s will on earth.


Author(s):  
Annabel S. Brett

This chapter explores the concept of natural law, turning first to the Protestant milieu. Alterity—what would in the seventeenth century come to be theorized, and problematized, as “sociability”—is the dominant mood of the humanist and Protestant handling of natural law. It is there even in Thomas Hobbes, whose natural law coincides with moral philosophy and concerns the sphere of one's actions in respect of others. However, the Catholic scholastic tradition presents a very different framing of natural law, one that centers on individual agency and regulates the behavior of individual agents in their aspect as beings of a particular kind. While authors in this tradition grapple equally with the question of animal behavior in relation to law, they do not do so from the social perspective that characterizes Protestant humanist Aristotelians and jurists.


Author(s):  
Jeremy Waldron

This chapter examines and defends the relevance of John Locke's writings as political philosophy. Locke's political philosophy continues to have an enormous impact on the framing and the pursuit of liberal ideas in modern political thought — ideas about social contract, government by consent, natural law, equality, individual rights, civil disobedience, and private property. The discussion and application of Locke's arguments is thus an indispensable feature of political philosophy as it is practised today. After providing a short biography of Locke, the chapter considers his views on equality and natural law, property, economy, and disagreement, as well as limited government, toleration, and the rule of law. It concludes with an assessment of Locke's legacy as a political thinker.


1990 ◽  
Vol 24 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 341-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kretzmer

It would be impossible in a short lecture to give a comprehensive survey of all the changes that have occurred in the last forty years in that branch of law known as “Israel common law”. I will not, therefore, try to do so. Instead, I wish to single out the most distinctive phenomenon in this area of law. I refer to the conceptual/intellectual revolution in the outlook of the court regarding the nature of its judicial function. The original view, according to which the sole function of the court in the area of public law is to decide disputes between citizens and public authorities, has been abandoned and replaced by an outlook that views the court as an institution responsible for the legality of public administration, or, as the court itself is accustomed to defining the matter, for the rule of law.I shall divide my discussion into two parts. In the first part I will briefly discuss the prominent changes that have occurred in the judicial decisions regarding public law in recent years, and the judicial philosophy underlying these changes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Gibson

AbstractDespite having a powerful influence on the historiography of radicalism and nineteenth-century politics for the past several decades, the language of the constitution has not recently received scholarly attention. In Chartist and radical historiography, the constitution is usually treated as a narrative of national political development. This article extends the horizons of Chartist constitutionalism by exploring its similarities with American constitutionalism. By doing so, it also opens up questions regarding the ideas of the movement. Like the Americans sixty years before, the Chartists were confronted by a parliament that they believed had superseded its constitutional authority. This perception was informed by a belief that the constitution rested on the authority of the fixed principles of fundamental law, which they argued placed limits beyond which Parliament had no power to reach. As a result, the Chartists imagined that the British constitution functioned like a written constitution. To support this claim, they drew on a sophisticated interpretation of English law that argued that the common law was closely related to natural law.


1983 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 633-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur M. Melzer

The Social Contract is reinterpreted by emphasizing its relation to Rousseau's other writings and doctrines. In the spirit of Hobbesian realism, Rousseau regards natural law and other forms of “private morality” as ineffectual, invalid, and in practice dangerous tools of oppression and subversion. But, still more realistic than Hobbes, Rousseau thinks it impossible to build a nonoppressive state on men's selfish interests alone and embraces the classical view that morality or virtue is politically necessary (as well as intrinsically good). Rousseau's doctrine of the natural goodness of man, however, which traces all vice to the effects of oppression, leads him to conclude that the non-oppression more or less guaranteed by the absolute rule of general laws is also sufficient to make men virtuous. Thus Rousseau can declare law as such (General Will) infallible and “sovereign”—and he must do so in order to protect rule of law from its greatest danger, the subversive appeal to “natural law.”


2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-503
Author(s):  
Aaron Moss

Australian administrative law's continuing emphasis on the concept of jurisdictional error is increasingly unique amongst common law jurisdictions. This paper argues that recent developments in Australian jurisprudence have provided little guidance for administrative decision-makers, who are left ‘tiptoeing through the tripwires’ of judicial review. Combining a detailed analysis of primary decisions, academic publications and historical scholarship, this paper suggests that this lack of guidance is the result of a widespread judicial reluctance to engage with either the guidance or educative roles of judicial review. As this paper demonstrates, failure to do so encourages uncertainty, unpredictability and a general lack of clarity which inhibits judicial review's ability to guide decision-makers and contribute to the maintenance of effective governance, administrative justice, and the rule of law in Australia. Particular attention is given to the decisions of Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v Li, Plaintiff M61/2010E v Commonwealth, and NBMZ v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, which together encapsulate many of the most problematic aspects of recent jurisprudence. To avoid these consequences, this paper calls on senior judges and commentators to articulate a clearer framework which will be applied to guide the future development of the doctrine of jurisdictional error.


Author(s):  
William E. Nelson

This book examines the role of the common law in the life and politics of Great Britain’s North American colonies from the founding of Virginia in 1607 to the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775–76. The main theme of the book is that when the different colonies were initially founded, they followed very different law—typically not the common law of England. But over the course of the seventeenth century and first half of the eighteenth century, the colonies all received the common law, with the result that by the 1750s the common law constituted the foundation of every colony’s law and every colony’s political system. Some of the colonies adopted the common law because of pressure from the Crown to do so, but others turned to the common law because of socioeconomic pressures on the ground. During the more than century-long process of reception, the common law gradually changed, and thus, what was on the ground in 1776 was not identical to the common law of England. Rather, it was a body of rules that would constitute a foundation for an Americanized version of the common law.


1995 ◽  
pp. 805-806

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document