American and European Ways of Law : Six Entrenched Differences

Abstract

Are European and American legal systems moving toward convergence?There surely are many pressures in that direction.A growing array of international treaties demand cross-national harmonization of domestic substantive laws on numerous subjects --pollution control, protection of human rights, public health measures, bank safety rules, the elimination of laws that operate as non-tariff trade barriers, and many more.This is to be expected, according to political scientist Beth Simmons ( 2004), because in an increasingly interdependent world, when powerful polities such as the U.S. and the European Union (or important constituencies within them) suffer significant costs or disadvantages from divergent national legal or regulatory standards, they are likely to use international or supra-national institutions, as well as their own economic and political leverage, to push for legal convergence.Some legal convergence also stems from what might be called 'spontaneous simultaneous adaptation.' Global competition and communications confront all industrially advanced democracies with similar social, economic, and environmental problems and similar political demands.Regulatory officials, scientists, legal scholars, and policy advocates fly across borders, in person and electronically, sharing knowledge about problems, risks and claimed legal remedies.

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