Le Code Civil : son r么le comme source de droit priv茅
Speaker: Pr. Julio C茅sar Rivera, Faculties of Law of the Universidad de Buenos Aires and of the Universidad de San Andr茅s. In French.
About the speaker
Professor Julio C茅sar Rivera obtained his Doctor en Derecho (Doctorate of Jurisprudence) from the Universidad del Salvador. He teaches civil law in the Faculty of Law of the Universidad de Buenos Aires and that of the Universidad de San Andr茅s in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He is the founding partner of the law firm Julio C茅sar Rivera, abogados, and has gained international recognition from his practice as a lawyer. He is a member of the Bar of Buenos Aires (Colegio P煤blico de abogados de la Capital Federal), as well as of the National Academy of Law, and is the president of the Argentinian Association of Comparative Law.
He is also a member of UNIDROIT, and a corresponding member of the Peruvian Academy of Law. In addition, he has participated in Argentina鈥檚 legislative life through his collaboration in the drafting of various bills, including the ones on trusteeship and bankruptcy. He has been a member of the Civil Code Reform Commission of 1995. He was also editor for the translation of the Civil Code of Qu茅bec into Spanish in the trilingual Code published by Wilson & Lafleur in 2008.
Abstract
Argentina is at once a jurisdiction in the civilian tradition with respect to its private law, and one which draws from the American model with respect to its constitutional structures. Following an analysis of the enactment of the Civil Code as an instrument to further a policy of unifying a federated state, the issue will be raised of the Civil Code's status as sole source of private law. To take this path requires reviewing the topics of decodification and of the new sources of law, such as the discovery of the Constitution as source of subjective rights; the constitutionalization of private law;聽 supranational law; the growing importance of the Supreme Court's caselaw, the lex mercatoria and the influence of the common law.
On the basis of this survey, a few concrete examples will be discussed with respect to the supplanting of the Civil Code as principal source for private law: creation by the courts of a system of civil liability for the press; tacit departure from the rules of the Civil Code due to their conflict with supranational law; incorporation into domestic law of the trust, etc. Finally, this intellectual journey will end with thoughts as to the role of the Civil Code within the various attempts at law reform.
This talk is part of the "Civil Law and its Codes: a Journey Across the Americas" Workshops, which are presented by the Quebec Research Centre of Private and Comparative Law, and the Grupo Hispano de la Facultad de Derecho. Sponsored by the Agence universitaire de la francophonie.
Attendance of this conference provides 1.5 hours of continuing legal education hours to members of the Quebec Bar, as per the Bar's mandatory professional training requirements.