Rechtswissenschaften

This article analyses the use of Ronald Dworkin’s philosophy by the Brazilian Supreme Court. After the Constitution of 1988, the Supreme Court gained a new and broader role in Brazilian political scene. At this time, the work of Ronald Dworkin (and its Brazilian editions) became popular and served as justification for four of the most important cases on the Supreme Court: the fidelity of Congresist’s members on their Political Party; the permission of embryonic stem cells research; the unconstitutionality of press regulation; and the homosexual civil union. Dworkin’s philosophy is a part of the changing-role of the Supreme Court in Brazil. This article offers a demonstration of the use of this philosopher in this in-progress process.

From the Weimar Republic and interwar period over the 1970s to the current debacle over the Euro, crises and crisis semantics has been a recurrent theme of European modern history. Although being very different in terms of causes, developments and consequences these three crises share that they were characterized by economic downturns, social upheavals and forceful ideological formations and semantic innovations which have both challenged and transformed democracy and the state of law.
On this background, this conference seeks to take a closer look at the many variants of the crises phenomenon in the European context from the early 20th century until today by looking at the complex interplay between structural transformations within the economy and institutionalized politics and law and the ideological formations and semantic innovations which complemented these transformations.

Speakers are:

Christian Borch (CBS); Hauke Brunkhorst (University of Flensburg); Ruth Dukes (University of Glasgow); Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann (UC Berkeley); Christian Joerges (Hertie School of Governance, Berlin); Poul F. Kjaer (CBS); John P. McCormick (University of Chicago); Claus Offe (Hertie School of Governance, Berlin); Niklas Olsen (University of Copenhagen); David Runciman (Cambridge University); William Scheuerman (Indiana University); Chris Thornhill (University of Manchester); Mikkel Thorup (Aarhus University).

Preprint, Oct-2014.
Abstract Sébastien Magnier provides a remarkable analysis of the notion of conditional right with the help of public announcement logic that he generalizes for the logical study of legal norms. Magnier’s main idea, motivated by the earlier exhaustive textual and systematic work of Matthias Armgardt and the subsequent studies carried out by Alexandre Thiercelin, involves Leibniz’s notion of certifica-tion, which plays a central role in the famous De conditionibus. Magnier proposes to render the notion of certification of A as there is public evidence for A. More generally, the meanings of “conditional right” and “conditional legal norm” are es-tablished by means of identifying a specific kind of dialogical interaction during a legal trial constituted by games of giving and asking for reasons. This yields a theory of meaning rooted in the practice itself of legal debates.
The main aim of this paper is to study the notion of conditional right by means of constructive type theory (CTT) which provides the means to develop a system of contentual inferences rather than of syntactic derivations. Moreover, in line with Armgardt, I will first study the general notion of dependence as triggered by hypotheticals and then the logical structure of dependence specific to conditional right. I will develop this idea in a dialogical framework where the distinction be-tween play-object and strategy-object leads to the further distinction between two basic kinds of pieces of evidence and where meanings is constituted by the inter-action of obligations and entitlements.

http://www.collegepublications.co.uk/cahiers/?00020
Entre l'orature et l'écriture

Relations croisées

Charles Zacharie Bowao and Shahid Rahman, eds

Voilà deux ans que le Réseau LACTO («Langage, argumentation et cognition dans les traditions orales») a été mis en place à l'initiative conjointe des Universités CDG-Lille 3 et MNG-Brazzaville. Des rencontres à caractère scientifique et organisationnel se sont tenues alternativement au Congo (du 19 au 21 janvier 2013) et en France (du 7 au 9 novembre 2013), avec l'implication d'autres universityés, en vue de circonscrire la complexité épistémologique du rapport entre l'oralité et la scripturalité, ou plutôt entre l'orature et l'écriture. Le présent ouvrage est, pour l'essentiel, le résultat des discussions issues de ces rencontres, en guise de tentative de réponse à la question principalement soulevée.

Ainsi, contre l'exclusion de l'une ou l'autre instance dans la définition des deux paradigmes du discours philosophique ou scientifique - le paradigme oral et le paradigme écrit - les contributions des uns et des autres s'accordent sur la vision que l'une ne saurait aller sans l'autre. Autrement dit, aucun paradigme ne saurait être pensé en totale exclusion de l'autre, si tant est qu'ils obligent le discours à s'implémenter dans l'espace et à travers le temps. Les catégories de l'espace et du temps constituent de ce fait tout à la fois une trame empirique et un cadre sémantique de déploiement du discours aussi bien oral qu'écrit, dans une optique qui se veut clairement et fondamentalement dialogique.

Il est par ailleurs une certaine lecture de la présente réflexion qui laisse entrevoir une triple articulation d'essence logique et herméneutique. Car c'est bien d'une quête de la connaissance et du sens qu'il s'agit : d'abord concernant les rapports épistémologiques de l'orature à l'écriture et de l'écriture à l'orature dans leur histoire, en ouvrant sur la dimension dialogique (Charles Zacharie Bowao, Marcel Nguimbi); ensuite relativement à la mise en situation de l'oralité, qu'il s'agisse du philosopher en langue orale africaine (Mahamadé Savadogo), de la parole proverbiale prise, dans sa dimension logique, mais aussi sociale et politique, tant dans son être que dans son expression sentencielle en contexte d'oralité et de néo-oralité (Mamadou Kabirou Gano, Gildas Nzokou), ou encore relativement à la temporalité propre à la prise de décision et à l'action aujourd'hui (Oumar Dia) ; enfin, relativement à la forme et au contenu du dialogue dans des perspectives herméneutique (Christian Berner), logique (Bernadette Dango Adjoua, Shahid Rahman) et psychanalytique (Dieu-donné Limikou).

The roots of law & economics lie in late 19th century continental Europe. However, this early movement did not persist, having been cut off in the 1930s. After World War II, modern law & economics was (re-)invented in the United States and subsequently grew into a major field of research at U.S. law schools. In continental Europe, law & economics was re-imported as a discipline within economics, driven by economists interested in legal issues rather than by legal scholars. Hence, the European discourse was more strongly influenced by formal analysis, using mathematical models. Today, research in the U.S., Europe, and in other countries around the world, including Latin America and Asia, uses formal, empirical, and intuitive methods. New subfields, such as behavioral law & economics and experimental law & economics, have grown in the U.S. and in Europe during the past two decades.

"This book develops a sociologically informed theory of constitutionalism in the global realm, addressing both national and transnational forms of constitutional ordering. The book begins with the argument that current approaches to constitutionalism remain tied to a state-based conception of constitutions, and overlooks underlying structural transformations that trigger the emergence of constitutional forms of ordering. Poul F. Kjaer aims to address this shortcoming by offering a sociological and historically informed analysis of the evolution of constitutionalism in the face of globalisation. The analysis contextualises on-going constitutional developments through the use of a long-term historical perspective, which is capable of highlighting the impact of deeper structural transformations unfolding within society.
The book looks at the ways in which national and transnational legal forms have evolved alongside one another. It demonstrates that the formation of global constitutions has not resulted in a corresponding decrease in the power of nation states, but instead, legal and political aspects of both the nation state and the transnational have been reconfigured and intensified in a mutually supportive manner.
In combining insights from a range of fields, this interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to students and scholars of constitutional law, sociology, global governance studies, and legal, social and political theory.

List of Content
1. Introduction: The Metamorphosis of Constitutionalism
Part 1: Structural Transformations
2. The Implosion of the Euro-Centric World
3. The Multiplicity of Normative Orders in World Society
Part 2: Re-configurations of Law and the Political
4. The Law within and in-between Normative Orders
5. The Political within and in-between Normative Orders
Part 3: Constitutional Stabilisation
6. The Breakdown of Constitutional Ordering through Globalisation-induced Crises
7.The Transmutation of Constitutional Ordering
8.Re-calibrating the Constitutional Concept
9. Conclusion

"

This article analyzes the Theory of Justice by John Roemer, which treats Justice as the outcome of a process that is able to maximize the minimum achievement level of individuals and hold them accountable only for their autonomous choices, excluding the effect of circumstances. In other words, it is a Justice algorithm. However, the results of the application of this algorithm lead to counterintuitive (unfair) outcomes. The article investigates the this algorithm’s viability and the philosophic topics that ought to be revised for an approximation with mathematical models, such as the self-reference in social sciences; the need to reformulate the concept of the individual; the variables in decision making and the complexity of life as a totality of games played by a subject in a specific period of time.
KEYWORDS: Theory of Justice; Algorithm; Roemer.

Is there a paradigm in Law? A real rupture in the way we know and applied Law in time? This article assumes an interpretation of two notes made by Thomas Kuhn about the absence of paradigms in Law in consequence of the difficult in develop science internal coherence (systemic self-reference) simultaneously with the attendance of social expectations (systemic external-references). Hence, analyze the structure of the references taken for the validity of law in the main thesis of Theory of Law. It is an important relation that grew with after the II World War, as the social claims demanded an observance of the hetero-references, such as human rights and justice, despite of the difficulty in adequate this references to the positivist methodology. But there is a right interpretation to be discovered as an object to be seen? Post-modern science philosophy broke the paradigm of subject, observer/ object relation leading the idea of an object to a construction of subject´s interpretation. It demands a reformulation of Law´s Hermeneutics to handle with this philosophic complexity: the subject as a linguistic composition (with multiple references) that interprets the self-references of Law and the external-references as he can. In other words, the references in Law´s Hermeneutics are inside the subject, and it is such a rupture with the past structures that it is possible to demonstrate a real paradigm-shift in Law.
KEY-WORDS: Hermeneutic; Philosophy; Paradigm.

If shares are issued below their market value and allocated to new shareholders, wealth is effectively transferred from the old to the new shareholders. Preemption rights seek to protect the investors from such a "dilution" of their shareholdings, from an ex post point of view. Ex ante, shareholders would anticipate such a dilution and buy the shares only at a lower price. Controlling shareholders will try to commit not to dilute the shares in order to receive more capital, or a higher price, respectively. The granting of preemption rights is one mechanism to overcome the commitment problem and thus benefits the controlling shareholders as well. This article discusses the role of the issue price under OR 652b, the draft of a revised regulation, and the infringement proceeding before the European Court of Justice (C-338/06).

This book collects a large number of essays written in honour of Professor Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann by his friends, colleagues and former students. The respective contributions cover the fields of international economic law, international constitutional law/transnational constitutionalism, EU law and human rights. The broad thematic scope of this book mirrors the extremely large field of interests of the jubilarian. Paying tribute to a particular trait of Professor Petersmann´s character who was always both a dogmatic thinker and a curious researcher, the authors try to cover both structural issues of law as well as most recent developments, in particular in the field of international economic law. “Construing” the constitution of international economic law, in both senses of this activity, was an aim throughout Professor Petersmann´s academic career and this goal stands also at the heart of this book.

No weakening, but rather an expansion, of statehood can be observed in the contemporary world. This does not, on the other hand, imply that extensive forms of constitutional ordering do not exist outside the realm of states. Instead, the evolution of world society has been characterized by a protracted dual movement where the expansion and densification of statehood and autonomous forms of transnational ordering gradually emerged in a mutually constitutive fashion. One implication of this is that neither the concept of the state nor the concept of nonstate transnational entities is adequately capable of delineating the object of constitutional analysis. Instead, the concept of normative orders has been introduced as an overarching category capable of identifying the contexts within which constitutional ordering emerges.
Subsequently, a distinction between the internal and external dimensions of the law of normative orders has been introduced, specifying them as respectively oriented towards establishing internal condensation of a given normative order and external compatibility between different normative orders. With this background, a framework for the analysis of constitutional frameworks of normative orders is developed. The central element is a distinction among three dimensions: First, a constitution implies a coupling between a constitutional object, in the form of a hierarchical organization of a given normative order capable of reproducing an autonomous source of authority, and a concordant legal framework. Second, constitutionalization implies a coupling between an internal reconstruction of an external constitutional subject within the constitutional object, and the register of legal rights, establishing a framework for exchanges between the constitutional object and the wider world as represented by the constitutional subject. Third, constitutionalism denotes the institutionalization of a double function, in the form of a principle-based and legally fortified striving toward universal inclusion, providing a sense of direction in time through an articulated form of constitutional consciousness.
The insights developed are briefly illustrated by the case of the global Fairtrade Certification System.