200 Years of Codification in Louisiana

The LSU International Law Society and the Center of Civil Law Studies are presenting a program to commemorate the bicentennial of the Digest of 1808. The program will take place on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 from 12:40 p.m. to 1:40 p.m in Room 110 of the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at LSU. The speakers for the program will be Prof. Olivier Moréteau, Agustín Parise, and Vicenç Feliú. Prof. Moréteau will speak on Disseminating the Louisiana Experience: The Digest Online, Agustín Parise will speak on Exploring the World Wide Impact of the Louisiana Civil Codes, and Vicenç Feliú will speak on Discovering the Roots of the Digest of 1808.

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CLE - The Digest of 1808

The Law Library of Louisiana and the New Orleans Association of Law Libraries are sponsoring a CLE program to be held in the 4th Floor Conference Room of the Louisiana Supreme Court, 400 Royal Street, New Orleans, on Wednesday, 15 October, 2008, from 5:30 p.. until 6:30 p.m. The program will be a one hour CLE credit at no cost to LSBA members. It will be a presentation by Professor Alain Levasseur, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, LSU, and Vicenç Feliú, Associate Librarian for Foreign, Comparative, and Internatinal Law, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, LSU, discussing their new book; Moreau Lislet: The Man Behind the Digest of 1808. There will be a book signing and a wine and cheese reception directly after the presentation. RSVP to Georgia Chadwick, Director Law Library of Louisiana, at gchadwick@lasc.org or (504) 310-2402.



Georgia Chadwick, Director Law Library of Louisiana, Professor Alain Levasseur, LSU Law, Chief Justice Elect Kitty Kimball, Louisiana Supreme Court, and Vicenç Feliú, LSU Law, at the book signing held after the CLE.

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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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New URL for Legifrance Civil Code Site

Legifrance has a new URL for the official English translation of the French Code Civil. The Spanish translation of the Code Civil is also available from this site.

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Books 1 & 2 of the BGB

The German Ministry of Justice has reposted books 1 & 2 of the BGB in English to their site after almost a year from the withdrawl of the English translation. You can find the new translation of books 1 & 2 here.

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Louisiana Civil Code Translated to Cantonese

Chinese legal scholar Lou Aihua has completed a translation of the Louisiana Civil Code to Cantonese. This translation will soon be available in print and the LSU Law Library will acquire a copy for its collection. If you are interested in this translation, you may contact the translator directly at aihua905warm@gmail.com.

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The Catala Working Group on the Reform of French Law of Obligations

The Catala Working Group is a group of scholars sponsored by the Association Henri Capitant and headed by Professor Emiritus Pierre Catala which has undertaken the reform of Title III of Book III of the French Civil Code (Of Contracts and Conventional Obligations in General). This working group of approximately 34 law professors produced a revision of the law of obligations (articles 1101 to 1386 of the Civl Code) and prescription (articles 2234 to 2281 of the Civil Code) which has been officially presented to the French government. The original text of the revisions, in French, is available here, as well as the translations in English (by LSU’s Professor Alain Levasseur), Spanish (by Chancellor Fernando Hinestrosa), Italian and German (by Professor Hans. J. Sonnenberger).

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The Big German Book (BGB) - in English

A while back, the German Ministry of Justice put out an official translation in English of the German Civil Code based on the version promulgated on 02 Jan. 2002. They pulled this translation from the net shortly after publishing due to flaws in the translation (click here for the Ministry's translation page). I thought it was gone forever but I was able to find that the University of Edinburgh School of Law has a copy of the translation posted here. While it is not an "official" translation it can at least help researchers unfamiliar with German.

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Foreign Law Translations - France, Germany, Israel & Austria

The University of Texas at Austin School of Law has a site at the Institute of Trasnational Law dedicated to provide translations of French, German, Israeli, and Austrian materials. The French and German sites are subdivided into legislation and decision areas while the Israeli and Austrian sites only hold decisions... While the German site has many dead links, it still provides acces to translated sections of the German Civil Code, the official site for which was recently pulled because of translation problems. For a more comprehensive collection of translated German materials, check the German Law Archive. This Archive was started by the University of Oxford and it is presently on its own domain, iuscomp.org, which also hosts the Oxford University Comparative Law Forum and the website of the Institute of European and Comparative Law of the University of Oxford.

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The Supreme Court, Justinian, and Antonin Scalia

My dear friend and colleague Prof. Paul Baier, George M. Armstrong, Jr. Professor of Law, has published an article that will appear in Issue 2 of Volume 67 of the Louisiana Law Review entitled The Supreme Court, Justinian, and Antonin Scalia: Twenty Years in Retrospect… In this article he gives a wonderful and colorful brief history of the development of the Civil Law from the times of the great Roman jurists that is a must read for Civilians everywhere. Enjoy it here first at www.law.lsu.edu/globals/pdfs/misc/BaierJustinianAndScaliaArticle.pdf

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Civil Law Resources for Spain and Latin America

The Universitat de Girona has a Civil Law page on their website with access to Catalan Civil Legislation and Spanish Civil Legislation in Catalan and Spanish. The site also features a Pàgina Jurídica that has a collection of Latin American law resources.

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Civil Codes of the World on the Web

The Association Henri Capitant Louisiana Chapter, under the direction of Professor Alain Levasseur, began an effort to collect the Civil Codes available on the web with the intention of supporting the Association’s primary goal of preserving and fostering the civilian heritage. Working in conjunction with Prof. Levasseur, I created a Civil Code Pathfinder for all the Civil Code sites available on the web... For countries where English is not the official language, and where English translations are available, the links to the English translations of the codes are provided. We make no representation as to the accuracy or validity of these translations. If you know of other Civil Codes sites not included in the pathfinder or if you find any dead links while using it, please contact me at vicenc.feliu@law.lsu.edu. Thanks for your help and I hope this collection can be of use to all.

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