Friday, January 12, 2007

Mirow on Latin American Legal History

M.C. Mirow, FIU College of Law, has posted short abstracts on SSRN for three recent pieces in Latin American legal history. The papers themselves are not on SSRN, but click on any paper title for citation information, or links to Prof. Mirow's contact information. Here are two of the abstracts:
Case Law in Mexico 1861-1919: The Work of Ignacio Luis Vallarta: Ignacio Luis Vallarta was instrumental in establishing notions of binding case law (jurisprudencia) in amparo actions (actions to protect constitutional rights) in nineteenth-century Mexico. This article examines Vallarta's reports of cases in the Mexican Supreme Court and his other writings to explore this concept in relation to his drafting of the Amparo Act of 1882. The work concludes that it is overwhelmingly clear from the works and statements of Vallarta that Mexican jurisprudencia in constitutional law is predominantly a product of direct borrowing of United States legal methods.
The Code Napoleon: Buried but Ruling in Latin America: Following Maitland's famous observation on the place of the forms of action in English law at the beginning of the twentieth century, this essay argues that the Code Napoleon has had a similar effect on Latin American law. It examines various factors that have served to bury the Code and those that have served to continue its rule in Latin America. For Latin America, the author paraphrases Maitland to assert that the Code Napoleon we have buried, but it still rules us from its grave.

Also posted is: Individual Experience in Legal Change: Exploring a Neglected Factor in Nineteenth-Century Latin American Codification.