Serge Dauchy

W. Hamilton Bryson

Matthew C. Mirow

Ratio decidendi is a technical legal term of art in Anglo-American jurisprudence, a concept opposed to the idea of obiter dictum. Ratio decidendi is the reason of the judge in coming to a judicial decision in a lawsuit presented to the court by the litigants for an official decision. Obiter dictum is whatever else a judge might say in passing. This concept of ratio decidendi operated very differently in the different nations of Western Europe and their former colonies at different periods of early-modern history as is demonstrated in the first volume (25/1) which was published in 2006.The second volume focuses on a specific aspect of ratio decidendi: the use by the courts of foreign law as the basis of their decisions when appropriate to the issues to be decided in a particular case brought to them by the litigants. The term foreign law refers to law that is not part of the law binding upon the court, in other words law outside the court's system of jurisprudence. Thus, one must consider what is domestic law in order to discern what is foreign to, or outside of, it. These comparative essays thus center on what law is foreign in various continental and Anglo-American legal systems from the Middle Ages until the 20th century and how it supports legal arguments and decisions.

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