Common Law

Introduction
            One of the factors that have more impact in the legal development is the globalisation. This is because the liberalisation of markets made it easier to trade cross-country, so that parties to contracts can be citizens of different jurisdictions. In addition, other legal rights and obligations emerge between or among parties covered by the jurisdiction of different statesor legal systems. Differences in legal systems and jurisdiction heightened the issue of the proper law to apply in the assertion of rights or enforcement of claims and duties when the parties involved fall under different legal jurisdictions (Friedman 1996; 1999).
            There are many legal systems in the world, but there are two elemental and influential, which are common law and civillaw. The states that follow the Common law are those highly influenced by the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the British territories. Civil law states are the countries with legal systems influenced by the Roman legal tradition such as Mexico, France, Austria and Germany (Apple & Deyling 1985; Watson 1991; Youngs 1998). As the two primary legal systemswith different origins and legal principles (David & Brierly 1985), these are the two legal systems commonly involved in conflict of laws. Nevertheless, efforts continue to find ways of determining when one legal system applies or when both can jointly apply. (Friedman 1997; Glenn 2007) Comparative law emerged to focus on the linkage between the two legal systems. This specific area of legalstudy clarifies the distinctions between the two legal systems for purposes of clarifying and identifying areas of linkage to address conflict of laws. (Zweigert, Koetz & Weir 1998; De Cruz 1999)
            In the same way, the fact that all legal systems have the same purpose of regulating the human activity within their respective societies can´t be ignored. This is very important because thecomplete analysis of our legal systems can give us the opportunity to improve and chose the best technique for make our lives more harmonizing. In the present essay the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of both systems will be described.
Development
            Common law and civil law both constitute legal traditions but with different conceptualisations and historic development.Civil law is the legal tradition that originated from Roman law, which found codification as Corpus Juris Civilis during the reign of Emperor Justinian of the Roman Empire. This codified laws spread across Continental Europe before spreading to the other regions where the influence of the Roman Empire Spread.
As civil law developed, this evolved into dual streams of thought. One stream comprisedof those jurisdictions that adhered to the codified Roman law such as France, Austria and Germany that adhered to the Roman tradition. In this stream belong the states that imitated the Roman tradition such as jurisdictions in Continental Europe including Quebec in Canada, Louisiana in the United States. The other stream pertains to the states that adopted the un-codified Roman legal.Nevertheless, although civil law evolved into two streams, the fundamental characteristic of civil law is its systematic and structured nature as well as its heavy reliance on broad declarations or general principles that often leave the details to the courts. (Zweigert & Koetz 1998; Legrand & Munday 2003; Orucu & Nelken 2007)  
Common law constitutes the legal tradition that emerged in Englandwithin the context of the Anglo-Saxon culture and emerged during the 11th century. Common law developed to become the basis of private law in England, Ireland and Wales.
Former British colonies and other countries within its sphere of influence also adopted common law including the forty-nine states of the United States and nine of the provinces in Canada. In addition, there are also states...