Remarks on the Rule of Law and on Yugoslavia

In this anno Domini when Eastern and Central Europe are so much in the news, one hears little about Yugoslavia. Part of the explanation for this curious fact is, no doubt, the great complexity of the situation in this heterogeneous country in which even the landscape is noted for its variety. You will easily understand my own sense of despair, then, in having learned that I have to encapsulate my report in a fiveminute presentation. To make matters worse, my predecessors have lain so many Eastern-European problems bare that the boredom mentioned in connection with· the third stage of the velvet revolution may at this point already have set in. I shall therefore limit myself to making only a few remarks about the Yugoslav political situation, a theme whose tedium factor is somewhat lower than that of my specialty- the legal system

A Continental Lawyer in an American Law School: Trials and Tribunals of Adjustment

When you pause to consider the problem indicated by the title, your first reaction may be that it is too general to be meaningful. Is there any justification for using the broad label Continental lawyer ? Can we lump together European lawyers from various countries, east and west? Is the topic not inextricably bound up with the great controversies raging over the existence, distinguishing characteristics, and interrelationships of various families of law? Is there any consensus on common features of legal education here or abroad? In sum, are there not so many qualifications on anything one may choose to say on this subject that the toal view is lost? Even with all these difficulties in mind, the more I reflect on the problem and exchange experiences with people who have gone through the same process of adjustment, the more I become persuaded that a number of significant points can be made on the general theme suggested in the title. Notwithstanding the great differences existing among them - and in spite of orientation programs - most lawyers trained in Continental law schools face rather similar difficulties in approachign the study of law in an American educational institution

Evidentiary Barriers to Conviction and Two Models of Criminal Procedure: A Comparative Study

Comparative research of criminal justice systems is still in its infancy. It is not surprising, then, that when questions are asked transcending the concerns of a single system very little is actually known, and answers tend to be mostly in the nature of impressionistic beliefs and vague hypotheses. One such belief, frequently voiced, is that the rules of evidence under the common law adversary system of criminal procedure present much more formidable barriers to conviction than do corresponding rules in the non-adversary civil law system. This belief is then related to a more general feeling that the higher evidentiary barricades to conviction somehow emanate from the very nature of adversary proceedings and that their lowering smacks of the inquisitorial continental procedure. Both beliefs are interesting to a comparatist

The Shadow Side of Command Responsibility

Command responsibility is an umbrella term used in military and international law to cover a variety of ways in which individuals in positions of leadership may be held accountable. In its broadest sense the term refers to the liability of a military commander for failure properly to discharge his duties. The failure need not necessarily imply insufficient control over the conduct of subordinates: a commander could be punished, for example, because he exposed his troops to undue risk. But in a narrower sense, the term refers to the commander\u27s liability for the criminal conduct of his underlings. This type of liability may in turn be variously structured, and be either civil, disciplinary or criminal in nature. Of late, however, the term is usually reserved to denote a species of this latter type - a species in which not only a military commander, but also a non-military leader, is held criminally liable for the conduct of his subordinates as if he personally had executed the criminal deed. Problems related to this particular species of command responsibility, as it has developed in international law, are the subject-matter of this essay