Events

Professor John Bell of the University of Cambridge Law School will present the 9th annual Bernstein Lecture, "The Relevance of Foreign Examples to Legal Development." The lecture will address three claims: governance through law is a universal and global activity and therefore its application cannot be confined to a specific jurisdiction; institutional activities of legislating and deciding cases are part of a conversation that extends beyond jurisdictional boundaries; and arguments based on foreign experience have only a limited persuasive status in national legal reasoning and therefore require discussion at a general rather than specific level. Bell is chair of the Council of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences; he teaches and researches comparative law in Europe, particularly French law. His recent publications include Judiciaries within Europe (Cambridge University Press 2006) and a recently completed research project on European Legal Development examining the development of tort law in Europe 1850-2000. He has taught at the University of Oxford and the University of Leeds, as well as at the Universities of Paris 1 and 2. For more information, contact Erin Daniel at daniel@law.duke.edu.