Summary
Law overview
See the full content of this document
Extract
Globalisation and law: some historical observations.
Arbitration and court proceedings have been alternative/complementary procedures since the 13th century; this has extended into international trade. Mercantile practice has always been recognised by the common law. At long-distance fairs (12th-14th centuries) disputes went to the fair lord's tribunal or to urban courts. Enforcement of court judgments was systematised only in the mid-19th century. Original records and specialist works based on such records, are used.
JEL categories: K49; N43. ********** What follows is, in some sort, a 'compare and contrast' exercise. Economists develop and discuss theories, using, on occasion, data from that storehouse of data, the real world (eg P. Leeson, 'Globalization and Governance'). By contrast, let me simply make some historical inquiries, into certain specific historical contexts (suggested by Leeson's topic). The object is, of course, to gain some insight into specific developments or happenings, in people's actions. The records produced by their actions, or other such residues from what people did and thought in these particular settings, are the sources from which insight is obtained. So 'the sources', documentary and other, dictate historians' specialisations, e.g., in particular areas of legal history, specific periods of economic history, and the like. Thus satisfactory historical inquiries rest on the relevant specialist works, and, at a minimum, some idea of the kinds of 'sources' available and used in such works. That is, any historical inquiry should be able to say what the residues are, from w...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
