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Abstract
Foreign currency loans are quite common in Italy, and in recent years they have given rise to heated debates. After a first wave of litigation in the 1990s over foreign currency loans indexed in ECU, Italy has adopted many statutory reforms aimed at protecting consumers in the banking and financial sector. Yet there remain considerable uncertainties and gaps, as the recent litigation on credits indexed to Swiss franc (CHF) demonstrates. The paper delves into the details of this litigation, exploring the range of solutions provided to the problem thus far, their underlying rationales, and their consequences.
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The book herein reviewed – ‘The Aims of Tort Law. Chinese and European Perspectives’, edited by Helmut Koziol and published by Jan Sramek Verlag in 2017 – offers something that is much needed: a comparative study of tort law functions that, additionally, focuses on China. On the basis of that study, the paper sketches out some comparative lessons Europeans can learn by looking at Chinese tort law, and in particular at the Chinese approaches to the aims of tort law.
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Many legal systems beyond the classical common/civil law mixed world may show themselves as the result of a historical combination of different paradigms, and of ever changing legal blends. Allegedly ‘pure’ (i.e. unmixed) civilian systems are no exception, as the Italian legal experience demonstrates. The Italian legal system stands as an emblematic illustration of how, in a civilian context, original and foreign (both civil law and common law) inspired legal rules, institutions, and attitudes may interact, develop through time, and synthesize themselves in a complex, yet unified legal culture.
As is well-known, from a comparative perspective Italy is commonly conceived as a member of the civilian legal family, and, more in particular, as a mix of XIX-XXth century French and German influences. This is, however, only one side of the picture. Whatever their current respective zones of influences are, the point is that French and German legal models are no more (as they have never been) the only ingredient of the Italian recipe. As a matter of fact, the origin of many components stretches wider both in time and space. In some cases, it stretches back to the fragmented plurality of normative levels which characterized the peninsula’ legal edifice for centuries before political unification. In other cases, the origin of legal rules stretches up to the more recent borrowings from the United States experience: from the plea bargain to the ‘quasi’ adversary criminal trial, from securitization techniques to financial contracts models, from class action devices to the overarching patterns of judicial review.
Hence, far from being a purely civilian amalgam, the Italian legal framework presents itself as the fruit of an endless interaction of local patterns with foreign-inspired paradigms. This is why the third legal family lenses can prove extremely useful in looking at the Italian allegedly ‘pure’ legal experience, and in highlighting the multiple ingredients of its somewhat mixed recipes. More generally, third legal family’s perspective may help put countries belonging to civilian legal family in context, and lead to a better understanding not only of the dynamic relationships between this family and other legal families, but also of the cross-fertilization phenomena which endlessly take place within and beyond family borders.
Abstract
In 2014 the Chinese State Council announced the establishment of a nationwide comprehensive social credit system. Western narratives often describe the initiative as a technologically enhanced tool of autocratic control for scoring people. Yet, as the paper aims to show, similar accounts are tainted by several misunderstandings which perpetuate Western orientalist postures towards Chinese law.
For the purpose of comparatively assessing the Chinese social credit system, the paper analyses the pilot programs set up to monitor people and enterprises’ behaviour by twenty-eight Chinese cities. The analysis will demonstrate that these pilot programs rely on low-tech methodologies, have limited strings attached, and are based on a relatively transparent legal framework. From a comparative perspective, our findings suggest that Chinese cities’ experiments raise problems that are similar to those posed by measurement practices widely employed in the West.
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This paper aims to investigate what human rights indicators are, and what role they play within international organizations. In particular, this paper argues that human rights indicators, far from having similar structures and posing similar problems, are created and live within frameworks, through processes, and for purposes that might significantly diverge from indicator to indicator. The central claim is that the pluralism underlying the world of human rights indicators reflects, among other things, the variable structures, objectives and modes of operation of the international organizations inhabiting that world. This paper thus explores how the massive production and extensive use of human rights indicators in recent years has not only been influenced by, but has also shaped, the missions, internal structures and operational practices of the international organizations that produce and use them.
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This paper aims to explore what role comparative law can play in the study of global human rights indicators. Global human rights indicators are created within institutional frameworks, and used for purposes that diverge significantly from one another. Indicators differ in their internal structures, in the networks of the actors making them, and in the uses to which they lend themselves. The potential of comparative law with regard to these indicators goes beyond the mere caution against the risks of misinterpretation of legal cultures confronted with the international human rights discourse. Comparative law lenses help, among other things, to see through the macrocosm of global indicators, highlighting patterns of convergence and divergence that are relevant to global governance and might otherwise go under-appreciated.
Abstract
The chapter outlines the scope and the aims of the volume. It first explains what ‘quantification of performance’ means and which forms it may take. It then surveys the existing literature on the topic and elucidates the value added of a comparative study of performance assessments
in different jurisdictions and areas of the world. Finally, the chapter explains the structure of the volume and identifies its main research themes.
Abstract
The concluding chapter summarizes from a comparative law perspective the findings emerging from the research. As the contributions collected in the volume show, the turn to quantification and performance-based tools is global, but the way in which quantitative techniques permeate the law is uneven across different sectors and countries.
In some domains performance-based tools are pervasive and deeply rooted in the legal system, while in others the deployment of quantification of performances is still experimental. Performance assessments also differ as to the methods used, which range from manual data collection to real-time scoring softwares, and as to the relationship existing between the actors involved – and in particular between those who measure and those who are measured. Other variances concern the effects produced by performance-based mechanisms, the degree of acceptance and resistance vis-à-vis their spread, and the awareness of their potential as regulatory tools.
In light of this burgeoning variety, the chapter grounds the need for more researches on comparative legal metrics. It is important to understand more about which forms of quantitative measures are widespread, in which sectors and regions, made by whom and producing what regulatory effects. It is equally important to understand more about the legal rules that may apply to these measures, and the ways in which regulatory measurements may be controlled.
Quantification of Performances as Regulatory Technique
The trend of measuring performances is global and pervasive. We all live in quantified societies, in which performances in an ever-growing array of fields–from education to health, work to credit, justice to consumption–are assessed and governed through quantitative techniques. While the disruption brought by the quantitative turn has been widely studied by social scientists, legal research on the issue is minimal. This book aims to fill the gap. The essays herein collected explore how performance measurements interact with the law in different regions and sectors, which legal effects they produce, and for whose benefit.
Quantification of Performances as Regulatory Technique
The trend of measuring performances is global and pervasive. We all live in quantified societies, in which performances in an ever-growing array of fields–from education to health, work to credit, justice to consumption–are assessed and governed through quantitative techniques. While the disruption brought by the quantitative turn has been widely studied by social scientists, legal research on the issue is minimal. This book aims to fill the gap. The essays herein collected explore how performance measurements interact with the law in different regions and sectors, which legal effects they produce, and for whose benefit.