Introduction

To the general public, there is no difference between civil law systems and common law systems, or, if there is, it is the same difference as that between crocodiles and alligators! In comparative law and its most useful emanation international arbitration, however, this difference between civil law and common law systems represents a summa divisio , a principal analytical dividing line. In many areas of the law, there is indeed sense in this dividing line, and instructive conclusions can almost unfailingly be drawn from its employment. Yet as Claude Reymond remarked in a ...