The Creeping ‘Authenticity’ of Europe’s
Intrusive Civil Law System
An article by
Lawrence A. Kogan
Lawrence
A. Kogan is a U.S.-based international business, trade and
regulatory attorney licensed to practise law in New York,
New Jersey and the District of Columbia. He operates the
Washington, D.C. risk consultancy, Sound Science Business
Strategies, LLC and directs the Princeton, NJ-based
Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development,
Inc. (ITSSD). The ITSSD is a tax-exempt, non-profit legal
research and educational organisation that examines
international law relating to trade, industry and
positive
sustainable
development around the world. Its studies and other
documents are accessible at
www.itssd.org
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SYNOPSIS
OF ARTICLE
:
France is moving to universalise through European regional
harmonisation and extra-EU international commerce, the
Napoleonic civil-law requirement of authentic
acts/instruments, which potentially affects every
conceivable private transaction within and beyond
continental Europe. Apparently, Continental European
governments are not very concerned about the impact on
English common-law evidentiary rules. Such rules form the
foundation of the common-law notion of due process on which
private property owners depend for their day in court and
for legal certainty and protection in common-law
jurisdictions. This article identifies how France is
working to export the main tenets of its civil-law system
of preventive justice throughout global commerce to
‘change’ international law and the
Anglo-American free-enterprise system.