Videos of Civil Law Workshop Series

The Paul M. Hebert Law Center Civil Law Workshop Series successfully held its two first sessions during the Spring of 2009. The general topic of the Series is Civil Law and Common Law: Cross-Influences, Contamination and Permeability. These first two sessions, Towards a Revival of the Case Method in Civil Law Education and The Vienna Sales Convention (CISG) between Civil and Common Law - Best of all Worlds?, are now available on video on the web. Click on the name of the session you wish to see and you will be directed to it.

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Third Session of the CCLS Civil Law Workshop

The Center of Civil Law Studies at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center presents the third session of the 2009 Civil Law Workshop series: “Civil law and Common Law: Cross-Influences, Contamination, and Permeability.” Professor Sheldon Leader, University of Essex and Distinguished Global Visitor to the LSU Law Center will speak on "Legal Theory and the Variety of Legal Cultures: The Example of Dworkin" This Session will take place on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 between 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. in the LSU Law Center's Tucker Room. Don't miss it.

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Second Session of the CCLS Civil Law Workshop

The Center of Civil Law Studies at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center presents the second session of the 2009 Civil Law Workshop series: “Civil law and Common Law: Cross-Influences, Contamination, and Permeability.” Professor Ulrich Magnus, University of Hamburg and Distinguished Global Visitor to the LSU Law Center will speak on "The Vienna Sales Convention (CISG) between Civil and Common Law–Best of all Worlds?" This Session will take place on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 between 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. in the LSU Law Center's Tucker Room. Don't miss it.

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Opening Session for Civil Law Workshops 2009 Edition,

The LSU Center of Civil Law Studies, Civil Law Workshop series will be putting on a continuing workshop series titled: “Civil law and Common Law: Cross-Influences, Contamination, and Permeability.” The inaugural session of this series, "Towards a Revival of the Case Method in Civil Law Education" by Professor Fernando Toller, Distinguished Global Visitor, LSU Law Center, Austral University, Buenos Aires, Argentina will take place on Thursday, 12 February, 2009, from 16:30 until 18:00 in the Tucker Room of the LSU Law Center.

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Digest of 1808 Online

On the occasion of the Bicentennial of the Louisiana Digest of 1808, The Louisiana State University, Paul M. Hebert Law Center’s Center for Civil Law Studies has published an electronic version of the Digest of the Civil Laws now in Force in the Territory of Orleans (enacted on March 31, 1808) on its Civil Law Online website at http://www.law.lsu.edu/civillawonline.

The Digest, described as the first Louisiana civil code, is now completely available online. The original French and the English translation can be viewed separately or together on the same screen. The typing of both versions was extracted from the first edition of 1808, printed by Bradford & Anderson, in the city of New Orleans. With the exception of obvious typos, the Digest Online strictly follows the original wording and orthography.

In addition, the manuscript notes of 1814, attributed to Louis Moreau-Lislet who, with James Brown, drafted the Digest, are available on this website. These notes are extracted from the De la Vergne Volume, a copy of the Digest bound in 1808 with interleaves between the English text on the left and the French text on the right. The manuscript notes on the interleaves give reference mainly to Roman and Spanish laws, but also mention French sources, such as Domat and Pothier (see the Foreword). This volume belonged to the de la Vergne family for generations, and is presently in possession of Mr. Louis V. de la Vergne. It was published by the LSU and Tulane law schools in 1968, and by Claitor's in 1971 and 2008. The right to reproduce the notes was generously provided to the Center of Civil Law Studies at LSU by Mr. Louis V. de la Vergne. The notes also appear for the first time in typed version, making them easily readable.

A search function will be added in the near future. It will allow thematic research, by word or combination of words, inside the French or the English version.

The Digest is freely available to scholars, students, practitioners, and laymen alike. The photographic reproduction of the manuscript notes may only be used for research or educational purposes. Please email ccls@law.lsu.edu for any question relating to the use of these documents.

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Bicentennial of the Louisiana Digest of 1808

(From the Center of Civil Law Studies, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Newsletter, January 2008, No. 5)

In 2008, the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center commemorates the Bicentennial of the Louisiana Civil Code, marking the confirmed survival of the civil law in Louisiana after the 1803 Purchase. This was the first civil code, anywhere in the world, to be drafted in the wake of the Napoleonic codification. It still has a significant influence not only in the United States but also in Quebec, Latin America, and Spain.

The Civil Code of 1808 will be published online in May 2008, both in the original French and English translation, with the notes made by the drafters at the time. An added search function will make it an easily researchable source. The Code will be accessible to scholars, students, practitioners, and laymen alike, all over the world, whether their interest is law or culture in all its possible dimensions.

The unveiling of this historic project will occur during the Journées Capitant on Law and Culture, to take place in Baton Rouge and New Orleans from May 18^th through May 23^rd. This conference will be held in French by the Association Capitant des amis de la culture juridique française, and will attract more than one hundred participants from French speaking countries all around the world. Support has been obtained both for the publication of the Louisiana Civil Code online and the organization of the events from the Organisation internationale de la francophonie, and the World Organization of French Speaking Countries. The Consulate of France in New Orleans and the Ministry of Cooperation in Paris are also monitoring the event.

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The Roman Law Library

This amazing website, sponsored by the Université Pierre-Mendès-France in Grenoble, contains a vast collection of Roman Law, ranging from the Senatus Consulta to the Leges Romanae Barbarorum, in the original Latin. In addition, it contains translations of these resources in English, French, and Spanish. This is a complete collection of the source materials of the Civil Law.

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Next Civil Law Workshop - Legal Status of Embryos

The Center of Civil Law Studies will be presenting the next lecture on the series "Revisiting the Distinction between Persons and Things"... on Tuesday, March 20th, 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. at the LSU Law Center's Tucker Room. The topic of the lecture will be "Human Embryo, Animal Embryo, Chimerical Embryo: What Legal Status?" and it will be presented by Dr. Laurence Brunet and Dr. Sonia Desmoulin, Centre de Recherche en Droit des Sciences et de Techniques, Univeristé Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne.

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Civil Law Workshop: Heirs of the Body

Professor Gruning, Loyola University School of Law (New Orleans), presented some interesting questions on the current state of the Civil Law in relation to the legal status of the body as goods or things... According to Prof. Gruning, Civil Law does not state what rights a person has on his own living body; what rights does that same person have on his own body after his death; what are the rights of person's heir on the body; and what are the rights of others of that person's choosing on the body. Presently, the law prohibits trafficking on organs, tissue, bone fragments, and in some instances blood. Yet in certain cases the law also acts as if there were some property interests of the person on his body but fails to identify what those interests are. Prof. Gruning suggests a that the Civil Law could handle a private law principle in which the person has a property interest in his body yet where trafficking on body parts would be prohibited by placing body parts out of commerce.

The workshop was excellent and the discussion after the presentation was informative and spirited. There were different approaches to solutions for Prof. Gruning's questions but it was clear that this is an issue clearly solvable by the mechanisms present in the Civil Law.

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Heirs of the Body: Cadavers, Claims, and Kin

The LSU Center for Civil Law Studies, under the direction of Professor Olivier Moréteau, will sponsor a Civil Law Workshop on revisiting the distinction between persons and things. Professor David Gruning, Loyola University School of Law will speak on the "Heirs of the Body: Cadavers, Claims, and Kin." The workshop will take place at the LSU Law Center's Tucker Room on Thursday, 08 Feb 2007, from 4:30 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. I plant to attend and report on the developments.

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Welcome to the Yellow Shoe Civil Law Blog!

I've been working with the LSU Center for Civil Law Studies for almost a year and a half and I just recently got into blogging. I had the idea of creating a blog where I could post developments and things of interest happening specifically in the Civil Law and about foreign and international law issues in general. This blog is the result of that idea, I hope that it is of use or at least enjoyable.

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