Workshop 'Understanding Legal Evolution'
Workshop program: June 23, 2011, from 8:30 till 17:45h
Location: room T3.06
Special Issue: Erasmus Law Review
Editor: Klaus Heine, ESL, Erasmus University Rotterdam
To register please send an e-mail to Miriam Buiten.
Understanding Legal Evolution
Questions concerning the evolution of law have always attracted scholars. For example, in 1897 Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote his seminal article “The Path of the Law” in the Harvard Law Review. Surely, in the past there have been other scholars who have pointed to the fact that law is not a static monolith, but a dynamic part of society.
However, only in recent years legal scholars as well as economists, sociologists and scholars from other disciplines have begun to explore the evolution of law in a more systematic way. There have emerged various approaches for the study of legal evolution. But, until now there is no consensus, which of these approaches is the most appropriate one to uncover the mechanisms of legal evolution. This must not be a problem if one respects different scientific views and if one believes that different theoretical approaches are needed to understand a phenomenon in total. However, a recurrent problem is that the proponents of the different approaches only seldom exchange their views and ideas. In this workshop the latter problem will be addressed by assembling contributions of scholars, which use different approaches for the research of legal evolution.
The results of the workshop will be published in a special issue of the Erasmus Law Review.
Financial support is generously provided by the Erasmus Trustfond, the Erasmus School of Law, the research programme ‘Behavioural Approaches to Contract and Tort’ and the Rotterdam Institute of Law and Economics.
Programme
8.30 – 9.00 | Get together |
9.00 – 9.15 | Introduction |
9.15 – 10.15 | Session I |
| ‘Evolution of law: Interplay between public and private ordering – an institutional economicsanalysis’, |
| Discussant: Prof. Dr. Willem van Boom, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam |
10.15 – 11.15 | Session II |
| 'The Ecology of EU Competition Law’, Wesley Kaufmann / Prof. Dr. Arjen van Witteloostuijn, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Economics, Department of Management |
| Discussant: Prof. Dr. Thomas Moellers, Erasmus School of Law, University of Augsburg |
11.15 – 11.30 | Coffee break |
11.30 – 12.30 | Session III |
| ‘Legal Rule Proliferation and Institutional Strength: China's Enterprise Bankruptcy Law, 1986-2009’, |
| Discussant: Dr. Yuwen Li, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam |
12.30 – 14.00 | Lunch break |
14.00 – 15.00 | Session IV |
| ‘Understanding legal evolution through constitutional theory’, Dr. Elaine Mak, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam |
| Discussant: PD Dr. Jan Schnellenbach, Department of Economics, University of Heidelberg |
15.00 – 16.00 | Session V |
| ‘Law and evolution/law and revolution: the essence of legal history?’, Prof. Dr. Laurens Winkel, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam |
| Discussant: Prof. Dr. Wouter Veraart, Faculty of Law, VU University Amsterdam |
16.00 – 16.15 | Coffee break |
16.15 – 17.15 | Session VI |
| ‘How does good governance come about? On evolution of institutions’, Prof. (em.) Dr. Hans-Juergen Wagener, Europa-Universitaet Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, and Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business |
| Discussant: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Erich Schanze, Faculty of Law, University of Marburg and University of Bergen |
17.15 – 17.45 | Summing up |
18.30 | Get together at restaurant (by invitation only) |
19.00 | Dinner |
