Lecture 1.

Private Law is the branch of law that deals with the relations between individuals and institutions (such as
company enterprises). Private Law regulations are made also to solve disputes among private people: its
content is focused on private matters. What does uniform mean? It’s got a multitude of meanings:
 Regular: something that is arranged in a constant and harmonious pattern.
 Consistent: it is unchanging in nature. It is consistent “in place”, meaning that regardless where you
are, you are affected by this uniformity.
 Equal: people have the same status, rights, and opportunities (on this point we catch the spirit of
uniform private law)

Social norms
They are produced in a similar way to uniform private law. They are part of the everyday life. Social rules
are law and inside legal systems.
A legal system is a set of rules applied in a certain community (which is the main legal actor). A community
could be, for example, a university classroom, the employees of a firm… it’s a very extensive concept. Social
rules are expressed in a unified manner, and this includes institutions based on norms, rules and
regulations.

Social rules system theory

Formal vs Informal Rules
 Formal rules are found in sacred books, legal codes, legal codes, regulations, or in the design of
organizations or technologies that an elite or dominant group seeks to impose on a particular social
setting. The are ALWAYS in written form.
 Informal rules are less “legislated” and more “spontaneous” than formal rules. They are generated
and reproduced in ongoing interactions. They are often unwritten. For example, when we go to a
restaurant, we are informally accepting the conditions set by the owner: when we sit to the table
we are accepting that we can’t just buy a bottle of water, but we need to order a first meal and/or
a dessert (we are signing an “informal” contract.

Legal systems are the result of the evolution of society, and societies – fortunately – are not confined
within the boundaries of national States. The two historical events that have produced the present-day
phenomenon we call “globalization” are:
 the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989
 and the gradual opening to foreign trade and investments of the People’s Republic of China, which
started in the early 80s of the last century and was sanctioned by the PRC’s adhesion to the World
Trade Organization in 2001.
All this has at least two important effects on legal systemology.
 The first, already seen in the first chapter, is the openness of legal systems to external influences
which are of various natures: economic, social, cultural, strictly normative.
 The second, which will be examined here, is the continuous coexistence of non-national legal
systems with traditional systems and the interplay between them

Legal systems are sets of rules applied in a certain community. U.S. have a federal legal system. In each of
the U.S. states, we found different constitutions.
Another example of legal system is commercial law: after WWII, it was so complicated to make cross-state
transactions. Some academics decided that it was important to develop a set of rules on behalf of business-
man/woman. The American Law Institute in 1954 elaborated the first version of the Uniform Commercial
Code: this states about different branch of the commercial law. It is part of soft law: composed of rules,
which are not binding, they are not compulsory but they have persuasive character.
When we face binding legal instruments, we talk about hard law. It can be defined as:
 Authoritative: enacted by the public authority
 Prescriptive: it states behaviours, implying sanctions in case of breaches
 Enforceable
Hard and soft law can become parallel.
Example: the state of New York can decide to transpose its national law some rules of the Uniform
Commercial Code. This transposition transforms soft law in hard law.

Traditional legal system implies the legal system of the nation states. Non-national legal systems are related
to communities. An example is the so-called Lex Mercatoria: Roman businessmen decided to create a set of
business rules, binding exclusively for merchants.