Question

According to International management experience:

Q-1 The British and former colonies follow the Common law, America was colonized by the British. How come the United States follow Civil law as opposed to Common Law?

Q-2 Do you know how to tell if a law can be applied extraterritorial according to the U.S.?

NOTE: Answer has to be in 150 words each, please do not copy and paste!

Answer 1

Q-1

In common law, past judicial rulings and legal precedents are used to decide cases. Here the law is developed by judges through past decisions of courts and tribunals. Where as in Judicial law, codified statutes and ordinances decide the outcome of a case. There are also countries using a combination of common law and civil law.

In the United States, in spite of being a formerly British ruled territory, the law is derived from other sources too such as constitutional law, statutory law, treaties and administrative regulations in addition to common law.

The laws are made at the federal and state levels and are adopted by legislative bodies. Once the laws are adopted by legislative bodies like Congress and State legislatures, they are called statutes. The federal and state courts enforce statues.

The process of Federal law making begins with the introduction of a bill by a member of the senate or the House of Representatives. Later on the bills are brought for debate and voting.

Q-2

The legal ability of a government to exercise authority beyond it’s normal boundary is known as Extraterritorial Jurisdiction. The general presumption is that the US laws do not apply outside of the United States. However, there are certain exceptional circumstances by which the United States may apply domestic law abroad.

Some examples are;

U S Citizens abroad, Foreign citizens employed by U S companies abroad, Violation of certain laws governing trade practices, corruption, human rights etc.

In the case of citizens, the U S has entered into prisoner transfer treaties with several nations, to facilitate the transfer of persons convicted of crimes to the home country to serve the prison sentence there.

Also there has been attempts to achieve certain foreign policy objectives through extra territorial application of it’s export control laws.