This article considers the following three matters: first, how every Christian tradition globally has its own system of canon law or other regulatory instruments; second, how these laws contribute to ecumenism as an instrument for greater visible communion between the separated churches of Christianity; and third, how a comparative approach to juridical ecumenism informs our understandings of synodality.

This paper offers a socio-legal historical analysis of the process of formulation and evolution of Chinese marine insurance law by transplanting foreign laws, with a view to grasping from the material of legal history and social reality the deeper significance of the imported law’s relation to tradition, ideology and environmental context. The key argument is that this perspective reveals how transplanted law emerges as an authorless product shaped by social forces and processes. It is created by the operation of institutional arrangements of law-making, which provide the platform for the interplay of diverse traditions and interests generated by the social environment of the importing jurisdiction. This research integrates several lines of discussion of legal transplantation that lack connection, highlights the impact of the transplanting process and contributes to current theoretical debates by proposing potential interdisciplinary research for future studies of legal transplantation.

From 1948 to 1972 the idea of the environment gained solidity within the sciences and in global politics, as a thing or a concept, which spoke of a need to save humanity from the harms it was inflicting on the natural world. As historians Warde, Robin and Sörlin explain, the idea brought about a revolution in the sciences, casting scientists as environmental problem solvers, fundamentally changing the way they worked. In this paper we connect law and lawyers to this history. We ask, did lawyers contribute new meanings to the idea of the environment when they first presented laws and parts of legal practice as ‘environmental’? Were they mere translators of the scientists’ ideas? And did they envisage the emergence of new environmental legal experts, who might change legal culture? We examine the early environmental law textbooks in five countries (Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand and the US) and devise ideal types to explain the associations, values and choices which underpinned their presentation of the ideas of ‘the environment’, ‘environmental law’ and ‘environmental law expert’. We consider that these types are useful conceptual tools which raise ongoing questions about the relationship between environmental law and its broader context.

While Canadian law has started to seriously grapple with questions that relate to reconciliation with Indigenous communities and laws, much of the focus is on specific, often resource-based, projects. As a result, there has been relatively little attention paid to other aspects of reconciliation, such as how legal aspects of employment may be re-evaluated. Employment law is a useful place to start as employment is a fundamental aspect of a person’s life, providing both financial support and a contributory role in society. This paper examines how different societal values impact employment law and in particular, how Coast Salish worldviews and law may impact, facilitate, and resist, the employment legislation in force in British Columbia.

This paper examines the question of reparation for non-recent institutional child sexual abuse in England and Wales and Australia in the light of independent inquiries which reported in 2022 (England and Wales) and 2017 (Australia). Both inquiries recommended the introduction of state-based redress schemes that would exist alongside private law. While the new UK government considers how to proceed, Australia has established a national redress scheme, there have been changes to private law and new legislation reforming tort law and removing procedural obstacles such as limitation. In evaluating the Australian reforms and the case for change in English law, this paper examines the different roles state-based redress and private law compensation play in responding to the harm suffered by victims and survivors of sexual abuse. It argues that there are urgent lessons that the UK government should learn from the Australian experience in establishing a redress scheme and that while legislative change to substantive private law has proven less than successfull in Australia, legislation on limitation periods and suing unincorporated associations has assisted plaintiffs. Finally there are lessons that private law can learn from state-based redress schemes in seeking to provide remedies that meet the distinctive needs of victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.

This Article uses various concepts of Husserlian phenomenology to explain the disparate opinion between the North American and Italian public in response to the prosecution and ultimate acquittal of Amanda Knox. This Article argues that the comparative difference in public opinion is due to an extensive shift in culture that is necessarily accompanied by a shift in spatial-temporal location. In this Article, the Husserlian concepts of intentionality, the Self, the Other-I, and empathy overlay the judicial opinions and media releases critical to shaping North American and Italian public perceptions of Amanda Knox. As applied, these Husserlian concepts function as interpretive lenses, providing the reader with a novel framework for analyzing the cause of interpretive difference across cultures.

It is now a cliché to highlight that whilst artificial intelligence (AI) provides many opportunities, it also presents myriad risks to established norms. Amongst the norms considered in the literature, the Rule of Law unsurprisingly features. But the analyses of the Rule of Law are narrow. AI has the capacity to augment as well as to undermine fidelity to the ideal of the Rule of Law. Rather than viewing AI only as a threat to important norms, this article’s core argument is that AI should also be presented as an opportunity to meet their demands. It uses the Rule of Law in tax administration to support this argument.

Constitutional courts operate under a framework of formal and informal rules. While formal rules have been extensively studied, our understanding of informal rules remains limited. Courts often rely on internal practices, traditions and unwritten customs developed over time, posing a significant challenge due to their hidden nature. Numerous constitutional courts lack detailed voting protocols in their statutes and internal regulations, leaving essential aspects to the court's discretion, such as, inter alia, the voting order, deliberation style, outcome versus issue voting and tie-breaking protocols. By employing a case study of strategic breaching of informal voting protocols in the Mexican Supreme Court, this article highlights the complexity of enforcing informal voting rules given that external actors may be unaware of them, along with other factors. Even when informal rules are broadly known, certain circumstances may diminish the efficacy of informal sanctions addressing their breach. Thus, key judicial players, such as chief justices or judge-rapporteurs, may take advantage of the informal rules of voting protocols to advance their policy preferences.

Biosimilar drugs enter the United States market well after they enter the European market. That is likely because pharmaceutical companies have many more patents in the United States than in Europe. But why is patent coverage of biological drugs so much more extensive in United States? This case study seeks to answer this question for drug formulation patents.

This article conducts an analytical review of the works of three prominent Thai comparative law professors: Professor Preedee Kasemsup, Professor Phijaisakdi Horayangkura and Professor Sanunkorn Sotthibandhu. Although influential in Thailand, their works are mostly in Thai and therefore have received little academic attention outside the kingdom. The authors argue that the works of these scholars have the potential to shine new light on comparative law theory and bring voices from the Global South to add fresh perspectives and contexts to a discipline dominated by scholars from the Global North. Moreover, this examination highlights the challenges that comparative law faces in freeing itself from this hegemony when using internally developed concepts and modes of questioning.

This article analyses the challenges that online marketplaces and e-commerce pose to traditional product liability doctrines. It uses a comparative perspective to examine whether an online platform can be liable to a consumer for a defective product purchased on its platform, and the adaption of product liability law to this challenge in a series of jurisdictions. It reflects on the role of litigation and regulation, focusing on Europe and the United States, and considers reform in a number of jurisdictions in this area. It concludes with proposals for increasing the accountability of online marketplaces for products sold on their websites.