2nd Week at the USIP
So my second week at the USIP has come and gone.
I spent most of the week working on the mobile courts research memo I mentioned in the previous post. In addition to that I have started editing INPROL's newest June publication, "Practitioner's Guide: Common Law and Civil Law Traditions." It is exactly what the title describes. It takes a comparative approach so practitioners in the field can be more informed as to the differences between the civil law and common law legal traditions, in addition to some of the more common variations within each tradition. It stresses the importance of practitioners abroad focusing on the context in which a particular state's legal tradition can be found.
I think it will be a very useful publication for those in the future, especially for American lawyers going abroad to work on constitutional building and judicial reform in post-conflict states. We do not want a repeat of what happened when American lawyers attempted to rebuild Iraq's judicial system, but were completely unaware of its legal tradition, quirks, or context.
That's all for now...more to follow soon...