Max Rheinstein

Conflict of Laws in the Uniform Commercial Code

The new Commercial Code, like the several older laws which it is meant to replace, is recommended to the states as a uniform state law. While it is to be hoped that the Code will really become the uniform law of all the states and territories, it is by no means certain that this hope will be fulfilled and it can safely be predicted that there will be at any rate some period of time during which the Code will be in effect in some states but not in all. Since the Codes law is in numerous respects different from the present, there will arise problems of conflict of laws which must be taken care of in some way. The sponsoring organizations also recommend that the Code be enacted as an act of Congress. In that case it will be necessary to demarcate the sphere of its application as federal law from that of the state laws, and that of its application as American law from that of the laws of foreign nations. Finally, when the Act takes effect as state or federal law, it will, as in all cases of new legislation, be necessary to determine to what extent, if any, it should apply to pending transactions. All these various problems are dealt with together in one Section of Article i of the Code, viz., Section i-io5, of which there are presented two versions, one to be inserted in the Act as a state law and the other to be inserted in it as an act of Congress. Problems of conflict of laws are dealt with, furthermore, in some sections of the substantive articles of the Code, for instance §4-102 (banks liability for action taken in the course of a bank collection), §9-io3 (lex rei sitae for secured transactions), or §Io-io2 (lex rei sitae for bulk transfers). The provisions of Section 1-1o5 on the Acts applicability in space were obviously inspired by the widespread dissatisfaction with the present conflict of laws. The draftsmen have not only chosen a mode of expression which, although only in form, is different from that usual for rules of conflict of laws, but they have also adopted a new policy. While ordinarily rules of conflict of laws, aiming at the ideal end of interstate and international uniformity of decision,1 are meant to connect a legal * Dr. utr. iur. 1924, University of Munich. Max Pam Professor of Comparative Law, University of

The Oracles of the Law

The work searches out the societal effects of varying philosophies of and causal relationships between the assumed judicial roles and the achievement of both stability and flexibility within the judicial system.

Epistemology and Social Order. Observations on F. S. C. Northrop. The Complexity of Legal and Ethical Experience

The rise of the nations of Asia and, as one ought to add, Africa, and the invention of atomic weapons are two developments which threaten to shake the way of life the Western World has developed. Is there a way to ban these dangers and to provide for the world an harmonious order? These are the momentous questions to which the author of The Meeting of East and West has addressed himself in his new book. Although of the thirty-two chapters of this work, thirty are adaptations of articles published at earlier dates, the book constitutes a coherent whole and an impressive testimony to the consistency of the thought of the author as it has developed during his incumbency of the philosophers chair at the Yale Law School. As the title of the book indicates, the author is concerned with human experience, i.e. epistemology in general, and more particularly, the relations between epistemology and mans ways of social order as expressed in ethics and law.

The Machinery of Law Administration in France and Germany

In a recently published article 1 the present authors have referred to the growing attention paid by the law schools,2 by legal literature, and by the bench and bar, to the comparative study of foreign law and foreign legal institutions. Encouraged by this growing interest, the authors have undertaken to supply, in a series of separate studies, what they believe will furnish at least a cursory knowledge of the background and contours of the legal systems in which interest appears to be, for the moment, predominantnamely, those of France and Germany. Such knowledge would seem to be indispensable to an effective and useful study of foreign law. No argument is needed to convince lawyers trained in the tradition and technique of the English common law of the importance of acquaintance with the machinery of law administration in seeking to understand a legal system. The purpose of this article is to give basic information concerning the organization and working of the judiciary in France and Germany. The undertaking is limited both in scope and in execution. The scope is limited in that the machinery of law administration is merely one, although doubtless a very important, element in the fabric of a legal system. Other equally important elements in this fabric-the personnel of the courts, the objectives of legal education which condition the approach and technique of lawyers, the law of procedure whereby the wheels of the administration of justice are set in motion, etc.-will be the subjects of separate studies. The present study is further limited in execution, for even within this narrow scope the authors seek to supply background rather than perfection in minute detail.