¹ du Bellay, Joachim, Les regrets XXVI 49 (1876) (1558). I have modernized the spelling from “Pour Charybde eviter tu tomberas en Scylle, / Si tu ne sçais nager d'une voile à tout vent.”Google Scholar

² This is the principal thesis of Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (1989).Google Scholar

³ See id.Google Scholar

⁴ Habermas, J., Die postnationale Konstellation und die Zukunft der Demokratie, in: Die postnationale Konstellation, Politische Essays 91 (1998), cited with approval and commentary in Christian Joerges, Europeanization as Process: Thoughts on the Europeanization of Private Law, 11 European Public Law 61 (2005) (manuscript on file with author).Google Scholar

⁵ See 1, Pierce, C. S., The Essential Writings of Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings 24, 30 (Nathan Houser / Christian Kloesel, eds., 1992); Paul Ricæur, Temps et récit III: Le temps raconté 177-83 (1985).Google Scholar

⁶ ERNST CASSIRER, THE MYTH OF THE STATE 91 (1946).Google Scholar

⁷ See, generally, Ingo Müller, Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich (Deborah Lucas Schneider trans., 1991); Vivian Grosswald Curran, The Legalization of Racism in a Constitutional State: Democracy's Suicide in Vichy France, 50 Hastings L.J. 1 (1998) [hereinafter Legalization of Racism] (noting the recent academic trend that suggests the populace and judiciary supported the regime's behaviour).Google Scholar

⁸ Cassirer (note 6).Google Scholar

⁹ Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire 225 (1986).Google Scholar

¹⁰ See discussion infra Part V.Google Scholar

¹¹ Rene Cassin, La Pensee et l'action (1972).Google Scholar

¹² But see Mary Ann Glendon, Diaries of a Forgotten Framer, 14 Harv. Hum. Rts. J. 277, 277 (2001) (book review) (noting that the drafter of the first draft of the Universal Declaration was John Humphrey).Google Scholar

¹³ For a powerful depiction of Cassin and his colleagues’ faith in law's power to eradicate human barbarism, see Mary Ann Glendon, Knowing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 73 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1153, 1153–82 (1998).Google Scholar

¹⁴ Kastler, Alfred, Préface to Rene Cassin, La Pensee et l'action 11 (1972) (“Ce sont les éducateurs de toutes les nations qui sont responsables de la jeunesse de demain. C'est eux qu'incombe la mission de semer dans l'âme des jeunes le grain qui en germant l'emportera sur les nationalismes et préparer la moisson de demain: la patrie humaine.“).Google Scholar

¹⁵ Indeed, they also are the factors that determine how judges interpret and understand the legal theory and methodology.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See Bauman (note 2).Google Scholar

¹⁷ See Curran, V. Grosswald, Politicizing the Crime Against Humanity: The French Example, 78 Notre Dame L. REV 677 (2003) (note 14), 708–09 (describing the effect of society's narrowing perspective on law's meaning in the context of crimes against humanity).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Du Bellay (note 1), XC, 113. I have modernized the French spelling. The original is “Qui les void par dehors ne peult rien voir plus beau, / Mais le dedans resemble au dedans d'un tombeau.”Google Scholar

¹⁹ Balkin, See J.M., Ideological Drift and the Struggle Over Meaning, 25 Conn. L. Rev. 869, 871 (1993) (stating that ideological drift means “legal ideas and symbols will change their political valence as they are used over and over again in new contexts”); see, also, J.M. Balkin, The Footnote, 83 Nw. U. L. Rev. 275, 277 (1989).Google Scholar

²⁰ Mack v. Canada (Attorney General), [2001] 55 O.R.3d 113 (Ont. Super. Ct.), aff'd [2002] 60 O.R.3d 765 (Ont. App. Ct.); leave to appeal refused by [2003] 217 D.L.R. (4th) 583.Google Scholar

²¹ The Chinese Immigration Act 1885, S.C. 1885, ch. 71, available at: http//www.asian.ca/law/cia1885.htm (last visited Apr. 7, 2004).Google Scholar

²² Factum of the Appellants at 3, Mack v. Canada (Attorney General), [2002] 60 O.R.3d 765 (Ont. App. Ct.) (No. C36799).Google Scholar

²³ Id.Google Scholar

²⁴ The Chinese Immigration Act 1923, S.C. 1923, ch. 38, available at: http//www.asian.ca/law/cia1923.htm (last visited Apr. 7, 2004); see, also, Factum of the Appellants (note 22), 4.Google Scholar

²⁵ The Immigration Act, S.C. 1947, ch. 19, available at: http//www.asian.ca/law/ia1947.htm (last visited Apr. 7, 2004). For a brief history of the legislative intention to bar Chinese people from Canada, see Mack v. Canada, [2002] 60 O.R.3d 765 (Ont. App. Ct.), at 1.Google Scholar

²⁶ Factum of the Appellants (note 22), 4.Google Scholar

²⁷ Id., 1.Google Scholar

²⁸ Mack [2002] 60 O.R.3d at 52, 54.Google Scholar

²⁹ Id., 1.Google Scholar

³⁰ Raz, Joseph, About Morality and the Nature of Law, 48 Am J. Juris. 1, 1 n.1 (2003).Google Scholar

³¹ It earlier had become a central focal point after the First World War. See Nathaniel Berman But the Alternative Is Despair”:European Nationalism and the Modernist Renewalof International Law 106 Harv. L. Rev. 1792 (1993) (note 14); Patrick Thornberry, Is There a Phoenix in the Ashes?—International Law and Minority Rights, 15 Tex. Int'l. L.J. 421 (1980) (describing the European political and legal climate after World War I) (cited by Mack appellants in Factum of the Appellants (note 22), 5).Google Scholar

³² See discussion infra Part VI. For a comparison of the legal communities in Germany and France, arguing that many of the contrasting aspects are attributable to fascism's shorter duration of four years in France, as contrasted with twelve years in Germany, see Legalization of Racism (note 7). For a comprehensive account and analysis of the law in Vichy France, see Richard H. Weisberg, Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France (1996).Google Scholar

³³ Factum of the Appellants (note 22), 96–113.Google Scholar

³⁴ This insistence on continuity was in sharp distinction to the Nazi presentation of the Nuremberg laws, as Nazi rhetoric proudly proclaimed its role as a rupture from the past. With the initial antisemitic statutes, promulgated in October, 1940, the Vichy French government also stated that Jews would remain entitled to basic property rights. With the French population's ready agreement to the legalization of antisemitism, the government dropped this pretense and proceeded to deprive Jews of all property and, eventually, of all civil rights. For the reassuring language in which the initial statute appeared when published, see Legalization of Racism (note 7), 9 n.21. The point that legal rhetoric provided a false sense of legality through continuity with the past is a central theme of Professor Weisberg. See Weisberg (note 32).Google Scholar

³⁵ A Judge Under Apartheid: Conversation with Justice Richard Goldstone, at: http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Goldstone/gold-con2.html. (Apr. 14, 1997).Google Scholar

³⁶ In France, civil plaintiffs, parties civiles, are permitted to bring charges in criminal trials. See Code de procédure pénal [C. Pr. Pén.] art. 85 (Fr.), translated in: The French Code of Criminal Procedure (Gerald L. Kock trans., 1973).Google Scholar

³⁷ See Lawrence Douglas, The Memory of Judgment: Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust (2001) (arguing in favour of the Holocaust trials as legitimate and effective). But see Vivian Grosswald Curran, Atoms of the Law, 53 U. Toronto L.J. 305, 309–20 (2003) (disagreeing with Douglas’ conclusions and arguing that the non-judicial purposes of the Holocaust trials ultimately undermine law's credibility).Google Scholar

³⁸ For an innovative proposal favouring a kind of collective guilt that would lessen the damage to law to which I refer above, see George P. Fletcher, Liberals and Romantics at War: The Problem of Collective Guilt, 111 Yale L.J. 1499 (2002).Google Scholar

³⁹ For a discussion of the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa, see David Dyzenhaus, Judging the Judges, Judging Ourselves: Truth, Reconciliation and the Apartheid Legal Order (1998) [hereinafter Judging the Judges].Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See Teitel, Ruti G., Transitional Justice Genealogy, 16 Harv. Hum. Rts. J. 69, 78–79 (2003) (noting that “truth commissions have been of less interest in post-Communist Europe, where the use of history by various governments was itself a destructive dimension of Communist repression”).Google Scholar

⁴¹ See Mack v. Canada (Attorney General), [2002] 60 O.R.3d 765 (Ont. App. Ct.), 52 (noting that the discriminatory head tax laws, once considered constitutional, now represent “one of the more notable stains” in Canada's treatment of minorities).Google Scholar

⁴² Id., 11, 52.Google Scholar

⁴³ Another major figure in the debate, whom I do not discuss, was Lon Fuller.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Raz (note 30), 6.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Id.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Id.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Professor Raz's example is the converse of Professor Alexy's, presented by Professor Dyzenhaus, of the state that declares its goal to be the pursuit of injustice. See David Dyzenhaus, The Juristic Force of Injustice, in: Calling Power to Account: Law's Response to Past Injustice (David Dyzenhaus & Mayo Moran eds., forthcoming) (manuscript at 14, on file with author) [hereinafter Juristic Force].Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Radbruch, See Gustav, Gesetzliches Unrecht und übergesetzliches Recht, 1 Süddeutsche Zeitung 105–08 (1946) (F.R.G.), translated in: Stanley L. Paulson, Lon L. Fuller, Gustav Radbruch, and the “Positivist” Theses, 13 L. & Phil. 313, 317 (1994) (hereinafter Radbruch). The view that law and morality were inextricably related was shared by Lon Fuller, with whom Hart debated the issue of positivism and natural law. But see Juristic Force (note 47), 40 (suggesting that Fuller believed there was a similarity between the Hart and Radbruch positions as “both resort to the idea of higher law in order to deal with the problems created by past legal injustice”).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See H.L.A. Hart, Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals, in: Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy 49–87 (1983).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ See Gnaeus Flavius [pseudonym for Hermann Kantorowicz], Der Kampf um die Rechtswissenschaft at vii-ix (1907) (1906).Google Scholar

⁵¹ 4 20th Century Legal Philosophy Series: Legal Philosophies of Laski, Radbruch, and Dabin 44 (Kurt Wilk trans., 1950).Google Scholar

⁵² See Radbruch (note 48), 317–18.Google Scholar

⁵³ Hart, H.L.A., Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals, 71 Harv. L. Rev. 593, 617 (1958).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ See Radbruch (note 48).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Caldwell, Peter, Legal Positivism and Weimar Democracy, 39 Am. J. Juris. 273, 273–75.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ See Hart (note 49).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Id., 77.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ See Curran, Vivian Grosswald, Fear of Formalism: Indications from the Fascist Period in France and Germany of Judicial Methodology's Impact on Substantive Law, 35 Cornell Int'l L.J. 101, 135 (2002) [hereinafter Fear of Formalism].Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Dyzenhaus (note 47), 15.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Free law theory, sometimes blamed for making a king of the judge (“Richterkönig“), in fact said that the judge's task was to form rules only when “the formal law has a gap.” Hermann Kantorowicz, Some Rationalism About Realism, 43 Yale L. J. 1240, 1244 (1934).Google Scholar

⁶¹ Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan 84 (1960) (1651).Google Scholar

⁶² See Hart (note 49), 75.Google Scholar

⁶³ Id., 75–78.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ See Flavius (note 50).Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Brecht, Arnold, The Myth of Is and Ought, 54 Harv. L. Rev. 811, 824 (1941). For the Free Law School's views on natural law, see Vivian Grosswald Curran, Rethinking Hermann Kantorowicz: Free Law, American Legal Realism and the Legacy of Anti-Formalism, in: Rethinking the Masters of Comparative Law 66, 79– 80 (Annelise Riles, ed., 2001) [hereinafter Rethinking Hermann Kantorowicz]. See, also, Vivian Grosswald Curran, Romantic Common Law, Enlightened Civil Law: Legal Uniformity and the Homogenization of the European Union, 7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 63, 110–11 (2001) [hereinafter Romantic Common Law].Google Scholar

⁶⁶ See Curran (note 65), 86.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ See unpublished letter from Hermann Kantorowicz to Gustav Radbruch (28 February 1906) (on file with the author) (as reprinted for author by Frank Carter, the son of Hermann Kantorowicz, and published here with his kind permission). “Im ersten Teil weist er die Existenz von nichtstaatlichem ‘freien’ Rechte nach und naehert sich insofern dem alten Naturrecht, trennt sich aber von diesem unter anderm dadurch, dass er die Moeglichkeit bestreitet, jeden Rechtsfall rechtlich zu entscheiden. Diesem, jeder Dogmatik abholden Standpunkt gemaess, zerpflueckt er im zweitem Teile die herrschenden juristischen Methoden, wobei er jedoch betont, sich mehr gegen die Theorie zu wenden als gegen die Praxis, die schon bisher meist instinktiv das Richtige getroffen habe.“Google Scholar

⁶⁸ See Dyzenhaus (note 39), 150–51.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Id., 75.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Id., 74–75.Google Scholar

⁷¹ See id., 74 (quoting judges who admitted that they deferred to legislation rather than apply equitable principles).Google Scholar

⁷² See Daniel A. Farber et al., Constitutional Law 92 (3rd ed. 2003) (“[C]ourts are supposed to choose the interpretation that avoids rather than invites the constitutional infirmity.”); see, also, id., 92 n.6 (citing William N. Eskridge et al., Cases and Materials on Legislation 873–89 (3rd ed. 2001)) (“This canon of interpretation is based on a desire to avoid unnecessary friction between the legislative and judicial branches.”).Google Scholar

⁷³ Dyzenhaus (note 39).Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Gustav Radbruch, Der Geist des englischen Rechts (1946)Google Scholar

⁷⁵ See Hart (note 49), 74 (noting that Radbruch believed “that the fundamental principles of humanitarian morality were part of the very concept of Recht or Legality and that no positive enactment or statute, however clearly it was expressed and however clearly it conformed with the formal criteria of validity of a given legal system, could be valid if it contravened basic principles of morality”).Google Scholar

⁷⁶ See Radbruch (note 74), 49 (1946); Gustav Radbruch, Anglo-American Jurisprudence Through Continental Eyes, 52 L. Q. Rev. 530 (1936) (extolling the common law).Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Radbruch (note 74).Google Scholar

⁷⁸ David Fraser, The Jews of the Channel Islands and the Rule of Law, 1940–1945: Quite contrary to the principles of British justice (2000).Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Id., 1.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ See id., 7–8.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Id., 37.Google Scholar

⁸² Jacques Ghestin & Gilles Goubeaux, Traite de droit civil: Introduction generale 338 (1977).Google Scholar

⁸³ Id., 339.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Bernd Rüthers, Die unbegrenzte Auslegung: Zum Wandel der Privatrechtsordnung im Nationalsozialismus 70 (1968).Google Scholar

⁸⁵ See Curran (note 58), 151–66 (examining positivism in Germany before World War II).Google Scholar

⁸⁶ See Ingeborg Maus, “Gesetzesbindung” der Justiz und die Struktur der nationalsozialistischen Rechtsnormen, in: Recht und Justiz im “Dritten Reich“ 87 (Ralf Dreier & Wolfgang Sellert, eds., 1989).Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Caldwell (note 55), 276.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ This statement should be read in light of (and as qualified by) the Methodendualismus of the Nazi period, in which the courts interpreted enacted law liberally or strictly, selecting the methodology most likely to further Nazi ideology. See Ernst Fraenkel, The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship (E.A. Shils et al. trans., 1941) (providing first-hand description of National-Socialist legal system in Germany); Rüthers (note 84), 177; Arthur Kaufmann, National Socialism and German Jurisprudence from 1933–1945, 9 Cardozo L. Rev. 1629 (1988) (recounting the law's transformation under Nazi rule).Google Scholar

⁸⁹ See Paulson's comment in Radbruch (note 48), 315 (“the exoneration thesis [i.e., exoneration of German judges by blaming the theory of positivism for judicial injustice] has been substantially discredited”).Google Scholar

⁹⁰ This argument is the principal theme of my article, Fear of Formalism (note 58).Google Scholar

⁹¹ See Romantic Common Law (note 65), 120–26 (exploring the implications of the common- and civil-law methodologies within the context of the European Union).Google Scholar

⁹² See John P. Dawson, The Oracles of the Law 321–22 (1968) (“None of the [judges'] decrees expressed any reasons.”).Google Scholar

⁹³ See id., 351–54 (describing the origin and evolution of the sale of judicial offices in pre-Revolution France).Google Scholar

⁹⁴ See David A. Bell, Lawyers and Citizens: The Making of a Political Elite in Old Regime France 15 (1994).Google Scholar

⁹⁵ See Dawson (note 92) 375–79 (describing the methods the revolutionary assemblies employed to subjugate the judiciary).Google Scholar

⁹⁶ See id., (detailing the revolutionaries’ attempts to subordinate the broad powers of the judiciary to the legislature); see, also, Jacqueline Hodgson, Hierarchy, Bureaucracy, and Ideology in French Criminal Justice: Some Empirical Observations, 29 J.L. & Soc'y. 227 (2002) (explaining the French Revolutionaries’ motives).Google Scholar

⁹⁷ See Andre Dessans, Essai sur la notion d'equite 138–39 (1934) (describing “la réaction des hommes de la Révolution contre l'arbitraire des juges de l'ancien régime …. le juge est [dès lors] dans l'obligation de survie de la loi à la lettre … il y avait dans cette attitude une réaction contre une abusive jurisprudence d'Équité, qui avait [eu] pour effet de faire vivre au milieu de la société comme si elle était sans lois“).Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Code civil [C. civ] art. 5 (Fr.) (“Il est défendu aux juges de prononcer par voie de disposition générale et réglementaire sur les causes qui leur sont soumises.“).Google Scholar

⁹⁹ For a more detailed discussion, see Curran (58), 141–51 (examining the doctrine of principes généraux and the French judiciary's reluctance to resist specific enacted law).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Mancini, Guiseppe Federico & Keeling, David T., Language, Culture and Politics in the Life of the European Court of Justice, 1 Colum. J. Eur. L. 397, 400 (1995).Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Dawson, John P., The General Clauses, Viewed from a Distance, 41 Rabels Zeitschrift 441 (1977); see, also, Franz L. Neumann, The Decay of German Democracy, in: The Rule of Law under Siege: Selected Essays of Franz L. Neumann and Otto Kirchheimer 29, 36–37 (William E. Scheuerman, ed., 1996) (describing role of judiciary in Germany before Hitler).Google Scholar

¹⁰² Wieacker, Franz, A History of Private Law in Europe 409–10 (Tony Weir trans., 1995); see, also, Folke Schmidt, The Ratio Decidendi: A Comparative Study of a French, a German and an American Supreme Court Decision, VI Acta Instituti Upsaliensis Iurisprudentiae Comparativae 3, 5 (1965) (comparing specific decisions that illustrate American implementation of state case law and French and German professed implementation of enacted law); Justus Wilhelm Hedemann, Die Flucht in die Generalklauseln: Eine Gefahr für Recht und Staat (1933) (analyzing the use of “Generalklauseln” in the German judiciary in the early twentieth century).Google Scholar

¹⁰³ See Rüthers (note 84), 1–12.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ See Michael Stolleis, The Law under the Swastika: Studies on Legal History in Nazi Germany (Thomas Dunlap trans., 1998) (describing the interrelation between law and justice in the Nazi system); Maus (note 86), 93 (referring to declaration by Germany's judicial association, the Richterbund, in 1920 that judges should not have any “keine unnötige Bindung“ (“unnecessary bond”) with enacted law).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ See Rüthers (note 84), 213 et seq. (describing the definition and use of general clauses in German courts during National Socialism). See, generally, John P. Dawson, Specific Performance in France and Germany, 57 Mich. L. Rev. 495 (1959).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ See, generally, Jacques Flour & Jean-Luc Aubert, Les Obligations: 1. L'acte juridique (1998); François Terre, Introduction generale au droit (4th ed. 1998) .Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ French courts began to use general principles with less hesitation after the Second World War in reaction to the Vichy judges who had applied inhumane law, but resistance to using the principles remains strong to this day and the issue is heavily debated in French legal scholarship.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ See Rüthers (note 84), 325–29 (describing the origin and development of “Rechtsfähigkeit”).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Id., 323–35.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ See id., 323–29.Google Scholar