Transcript Add-1 The Genesis of Law File

Week 1 Part 2
The Genesis of Law
 Historical
development – Early Origins
 The Code of Hammurabi
 Ancient Greece – Solon
 The Roman Empire – Roman Law
 Law at European universities
 Modern codifications
 Law
does not stand still.
 While the modern system of law can be
traced back some two-three hundred
years, certain of the basic concepts of
law can be traced back thousands of
years ago.
 The first traces of law come from the citystates situated in the area known to
historians as Mesopotamia.
 Hammurabi
was the king of Babylon from
1792 BC to 1750 BC.
 Hammurabi had succeeded in uniting all
of Mesopotamia under his rule by
winning a series of wars against
neighboring kingdoms.
 Hammurabi is best known for the
promulgation of a new code of
Babylonian law – the Code of Hammurabi
– one of the first written laws in the world.
 The
Code of Hammurabi is inscribed on
a stele in the shape of a finger about
2.25-metre tall in the Akkadian language
using cuneiform script.
 It was discovered in 1901 and is now on
display in the Museum of Louvre in Paris.
It contains 282 laws written on 12 tablets.
 Solon, born
c. 630 BC – died c. 560 BC,
was an Athenian statesman, known as one
of the Seven Wise Men of Greece who
introduced a new law code for Athens. He
was also a poet.
 His code replaced the code of Draco (621
BC) and remained the foundation of
Athenian statute law until the end of the
5th century.
 Roman
law was the law of the Roman Empire
from the time of the founding of the city of
Rome in 753 BC until the fall of the Western
Empire in the 5th century AD.
 It remained in use in the Eastern, or
Byzantine, Empire until 1453.
 The legal institutions evolved by the
Romans had influence on the laws of other
peoples in times long after the
disappearance of the Roman Empire.
 The
Law of the Twelve Tables (Duodecim
Tabularum) was composed by a
commission, first of ten and then of
twelve men, in 451-450 BC.
 It was engraved on twelve tablets
(whence the title), which were attached to
the Rostra before the Curia in the Forum
of Rome.
 The
Byzantine Roman Emperor Justinian,
ordered the revision and codification of
Roman law consisting of three books Corpus Juris Civilis.
 The work was carried out between 529
and 534 AD.
 Emperor
Justinian’s codification spread
throughout most of Europe and was
taught at European universities. Its rules
were reinterpreted and adapted to suit
the requirements of the time.
 University
of Bologna – 1088;
 University of Oxford – 1167;
 University of Cambridge – 1209;
 University of Salamanca – 1218;
 University of Padua – 1222;
 Charles University of Prague – 1348;
 Jagiellonian University – 1364;
 University of Warsaw – 1816;
 Istanbul University – modern since 1933;
 University of Ibadan – 1948.
 By
the 18th century Justinian’s codification
was replaced by several modern codes
such as: The Napoleonic Code of 1804
or the German civil code (BGB) of 1900.
 BGB served as a model for civil codes of
China, Japan, Taiwan, Greece and many
other states.