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> he basis of the USA system of law is completely different from even other European courts, let alone non-Western systems of law. This suggests that it's mean

> he basis of the USA system of law is completely different from even other European courts, let alone non-Western systems of law. This suggests that it's meaningful to divide legal systems into “Western” vs. “Non-western”. The most meaningful divide is rather “civil law” vs. “common law”. Japanese civil law is probably closer to any continental European civil law than any of them are to say the U.K.'s or U.S.A.'s common law.

leoc 5y ago
> the U.K.'s [...] common law You mean England-and-Wales' and Northern Ireland's common law ofc! :)
- Blikkentrekker 5y ago
  This is interesting new information to me, but I looked it up and Scotland indeed has what many consider a mixed system, quite unique since the U.K. is a unitary state. I was already aware that Scotland uniquely for the U.K. has the unus testis, nullus testis principle which is ubiquitous in civil law systems, but I had no idea of how far reaching it was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law#Scotland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law#Scotland Regardless, looking at this map of the world here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Legal_systems_of_the_world_(en).png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Legal_sys... It is quite clear that continental Europe shares more with even China than it does with say, England, Australia, or the U.S.A..
  - kazen44 5y ago
    civil law is obviously based on the "code civil" from the french republic and to a lesser extent ancient roman civil law. The fact that most of the world has this system is quite easily explained. mainly thanks to colonialism and imperialism. China adopted a similair system after the boxer rebellion.
    - Blikkentrekker 5y ago
      I think many civilizations independently invented it. The innovation that law is written down by lawmakers is not that hard to duplicate. If anything, the opposite happened and high frequency of common law in the world is purely because the British Empire was the largest empire to have ever existed and all states that utilize common law descend from the British Empire. Until the British Empire, common law existed only on the British Isles and the rest of the world had civil law.

leoc 5y ago

> the U.K.'s [...] common law You mean England-and-Wales' and Northern Ireland's common law ofc! :)

Blikkentrekker 5y ago
This is interesting new information to me, but I looked it up and Scotland indeed has what many consider a mixed system, quite unique since the U.K. is a unitary state. I was already aware that Scotland uniquely for the U.K. has the unus testis, nullus testis principle which is ubiquitous in civil law systems, but I had no idea of how far reaching it was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law#Scotland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law#Scotland Regardless, looking at this map of the world here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Legal_systems_of_the_world_(en).png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Legal_sys... It is quite clear that continental Europe shares more with even China than it does with say, England, Australia, or the U.S.A..
- kazen44 5y ago
  civil law is obviously based on the "code civil" from the french republic and to a lesser extent ancient roman civil law. The fact that most of the world has this system is quite easily explained. mainly thanks to colonialism and imperialism. China adopted a similair system after the boxer rebellion.
  - Blikkentrekker 5y ago
    I think many civilizations independently invented it. The innovation that law is written down by lawmakers is not that hard to duplicate. If anything, the opposite happened and high frequency of common law in the world is purely because the British Empire was the largest empire to have ever existed and all states that utilize common law descend from the British Empire. Until the British Empire, common law existed only on the British Isles and the rest of the world had civil law.