As nationalism grew within the 18th and nineteenth centuries, the Law Merchant was integrated into countries’ native law beneath new civil codes. In distinction to English widespread law, which consists of huge tomes of case law, codes in small books are simple to export and simple for judges to use. EU law is codified in treaties, however develops by way of de facto precedent laid down by the European Court of Justice. Ancient India and China represent distinct traditions of law, and have historically had independent faculties of authorized theory and practice.
Kelsen believed that though law is separate from morality, it is endowed with “normativity”, that means we must obey it. While laws are positive “is” statements (e.g. the nice for reversing on a freeway is €500); law tells us what we “should” do. Thus, every legal system could be hypothesised to have a basic norm instructing us to …