Not Ordinary Trading Companies: Common Law Responses to Insolvent Utilities in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Wardrop
Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi

This concluding chapter identifies the four major causes of the growth and origin of judicial review in the G-20 common law countries and in Israel. First, the need for a federalism umpire, and occasionally a separation of powers umpire, played a major role in the development of judicial review of the constitutionality of legislation in the United States, in Canada, in Australia, in India, and most recently in the United Kingdom. Second, there is a rights from wrongs phenomenon at work in the growth of judicial review in the United States, after the Civil War; in Canada, with the 1982 adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; in India, after the Indira Gandhi State of Emergency led to a massive trampling on human rights; in Israel, after the Holocaust; in South Africa, after racist apartheid misrule; and in the United Kingdom, after that country accumulated an embarrassing record before the European Court of Human Rights prior to 1998. This proves that judicial review of the constitutionality of legislation often occurs in response to a deprivation of human rights. Third, the seven common law countries all borrowed a lot from one another, and from civil law countries, in writing their constitutions. Fourth, and finally, the common law countries all create multiple democratic institutions or political parties, which renders any political attempt to strike back at the Supreme Court impossible to maintain.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi

This book is about the stunning birth and growth of judicial review in the civil law world, since 1945. In Volume I of this two-volume series, I showed that judicial review was born and grew in common law G-20 constitutional democracies and in Israel primarily: (1) when there is a need for a federalism or a separation of powers umpire, (2) when there is a rights from wrongs dynamic, (3) when there is borrowing, and (4) when the political structure of a country’s institutions leaves space within which the judiciary can operate. The countries discussed in Volume I were the following: (1) the United States, (2) Canada, (3) Australia, (4) India, (5) Israel, (6) South Africa, and (7) the United Kingdom....


Author(s):  
Shai Lavi

The article examines the ways in which three common law countries——the United Kingdom, the United States, and Israel——have introduced new rules for the revocation of citizenship that diverge from the traditional common law model. The main thrust of the article is to demonstrate how these new regulations are based on three distinct models of citizenship: citizenship as security, citizenship as a social contract, and citizenship as an ethnonational bond. Instead of critically evaluating each model, the article offers a fourth model for revocation based on the civic notion of citizenship. This model offers a new formulation of the traditional common law duty of allegiance, of its breach, and of the revocation of citizenship as punishment. The article will conclude with the suggestion that this model may be able simultaneously to guarantee the protection of political rights and to safeguard the political community.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Benjamin Suter

<p>This paper examines the scope of rights of appeal from arbitration awards in New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.  In countries that have drafted their legislation after the UNCITRAL Model Law appeals are often excluded and only recourse based on very narrow grounds is available. While many countries are more permissive with regards to appeals than the Model Law in that they allow the parties to opt for more expansive review, none of the examined jurisdictions give the parties the right to opt for appeals on questions of law and fact.  In several cases parties have tried to expand the rights of appeal by agreement. Such agreements are deemed invalid in all jurisdictions. When examining whether the invalid clause renders the entire arbitration agreement invalid, courts in common law jurisdictions have applied the doctrine of severance in some variations. Civil law courts usually examine whether the parties would have concluded the contract without the invalid clause (“but for”-test).  This paper suggests that many of these tests are not suitable for arbitration agreements where the parties do not exchange considerations but rather promise one another exactly the same. The preferable approach is to combine the “but for”-test with a test that assesses if severance alters the nature of the agreement.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Benjamin Suter

<p>This paper examines the scope of rights of appeal from arbitration awards in New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.  In countries that have drafted their legislation after the UNCITRAL Model Law appeals are often excluded and only recourse based on very narrow grounds is available. While many countries are more permissive with regards to appeals than the Model Law in that they allow the parties to opt for more expansive review, none of the examined jurisdictions give the parties the right to opt for appeals on questions of law and fact.  In several cases parties have tried to expand the rights of appeal by agreement. Such agreements are deemed invalid in all jurisdictions. When examining whether the invalid clause renders the entire arbitration agreement invalid, courts in common law jurisdictions have applied the doctrine of severance in some variations. Civil law courts usually examine whether the parties would have concluded the contract without the invalid clause (“but for”-test).  This paper suggests that many of these tests are not suitable for arbitration agreements where the parties do not exchange considerations but rather promise one another exactly the same. The preferable approach is to combine the “but for”-test with a test that assesses if severance alters the nature of the agreement.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Benjamin Suter

<p>This paper examines the scope of rights of appeal from arbitration awards in New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.  In countries that have drafted their legislation after the UNCITRAL Model Law appeals are often excluded and only recourse based on very narrow grounds is available. While many countries are more permissive with regards to appeals than the Model Law in that they allow the parties to opt for more expansive review, none of the examined jurisdictions give the parties the right to opt for appeals on questions of law and fact.  In several cases parties have tried to expand the rights of appeal by agreement. Such agreements are deemed invalid in all jurisdictions. When examining whether the invalid clause renders the entire arbitration agreement invalid, courts in common law jurisdictions have applied the doctrine of severance in some variations. Civil law courts usually examine whether the parties would have concluded the contract without the invalid clause (“but for”-test). This paper suggests that many of these tests are not suitable for arbitration agreements where the parties do not exchange considerations but rather promise one another exactly the same. The preferable approach is to combine the “but for”-test with a test that assesses if severance alters the nature of the agreement.</p>


Laws ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
James Simeon

Terrorism is a concept that defies a simple and straightforward legal definition. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that there is no Comprehensive Convention on Terrorism with a universally accepted definition of what constitutes “terrorism.” Consequently, States have devised their own definitions of what constitutes terrorism that are typically found in their criminal law. This raises the fundamental question of whether there is a convergence or divergence in jurisprudential trends on what constitutes terrorism among States? Presumably, a convergence in jurisprudential trends is more likely to contribute to combatting the threat of terrorism at the international and national levels. Accordingly, this article comparatively analyzes the definition of terrorism in three common law jurisdictions: the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. It finds that although there are a number of similarities in the definition of terrorism in these three States, they have significantly different definitions of what constitutes terrorism. The UK definition, ostensibly, has the broadest definition of terrorism of the three States. The US has, undoubtedly, the most unique, with separate definitions for “international terrorism” and “domestic terrorism.” Additionally, Canada has the most international definition of terrorism, drawing on 13 functional terrorism Conventions to define offenses such as hijacking, hostage taking, and bombing, etc. The second part of the article comparatively analyzes seven of the leading Supreme Court cases on terrorism in these three States. From the ratio or rationes decidendi in each of these cases, it draws out the twelve legal principles that underlie these judgements and finds that they are similar and overall consistent. The conclusion reached is that there is, at least in these three common law jurisdictions, an apparent convergence in jurisprudential trends in the law of terrorism. This augurs well for the development and emergence of a common definition of what constitutes terrorism at the international and transnational levels, as well as more rigorous and effective counter-terrorism laws and policies within and across States.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Benjamin Suter

<p>This paper examines the scope of rights of appeal from arbitration awards in New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.  In countries that have drafted their legislation after the UNCITRAL Model Law appeals are often excluded and only recourse based on very narrow grounds is available. While many countries are more permissive with regards to appeals than the Model Law in that they allow the parties to opt for more expansive review, none of the examined jurisdictions give the parties the right to opt for appeals on questions of law and fact.  In several cases parties have tried to expand the rights of appeal by agreement. Such agreements are deemed invalid in all jurisdictions. When examining whether the invalid clause renders the entire arbitration agreement invalid, courts in common law jurisdictions have applied the doctrine of severance in some variations. Civil law courts usually examine whether the parties would have concluded the contract without the invalid clause (“but for”-test). This paper suggests that many of these tests are not suitable for arbitration agreements where the parties do not exchange considerations but rather promise one another exactly the same. The preferable approach is to combine the “but for”-test with a test that assesses if severance alters the nature of the agreement.</p>


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