Ratio decidendi: Guiding Principles of Judicial Decisions. Vol. 2: 'Foreign' Law

edited by Serge Dauchy, W. Hamilton Bryson and Matthew C. Mirow

This collection of essays is concerned with the subject of ratio decidendi, which is a technical legal term of art in Anglo-American jurisprudence. This group of essays focuses on one narrow aspect of ratio decidendi, the use by the courts of foreign law as the basis of their decisions when appropriate to the issues to be decided in a particular case brought to them by the litigants. The study of the process of the assimilation of foreign law is the scope of this book. The observation of this process in the past in different legal cultures of western Europe is enlightening. It gives a better understanding of the current law by showing how we got to where we are today.