Law books are boring. Those of us who are involved in the world of Law, read and handle them for professional or academic reasons if we are framed in a university environment.
As a general rule they are not good reading. But there are exceptions and I want to refer to an enjoyable and instructive book that is worth reading or at least browsing: The Fall of the Priests and the Rise of the lawyerswritten by Philip R. Wood. The thesis of this author is that the decline of religions has been accompanied by an enormous growth of law and the number of lawyerswith the appearance and development of a diffuse morality that the author summarizes in certain rules that he calls “rule of law” and that could be translated as “rule of law”, or submission of all people and authorities, whether private or public, to a set of rules administered by independent and impartial judges.
Philip R. Wood defines and explains these rules that range from respect for life to the protection of property rights, summarizing their historical origins, but without entering into complex philosophical disquisitions about their origin in divine law (Saint Thomas of Aquino) or based on a natural right of a rational nature following the theories of Hugo Grotius o Samuel Pufendorf.
And yet, Philip R. Wood’s thesis responds to a Eurocentric approach, and to the crisis of the Christian faith in Europe. Instead, the Muslim religion is in a new phase of expansion in Africa where in some states of Nigeria and in large areas of the Sahel the “Sharia” prevails. Islam is also very well established in the Indian subcontinent. In countries like the US, the evangelical movement is very strongwhich partly explains the recent ruling of the Supreme Court that considers that there is no constitutional right to abortion.
Protests in front of the US Supreme Court. (Photo: EFE/Michael Reynolds)
Despite everything, there are parts of this book that are “useful” for any young lawyer insofar as they address the differences between the “British common law” and European civil law systems. An arduous task to unravel. I would also highlight its division of the world between countries with pro-creditor bankruptcy legislation compared to other countries like ours, with pro-debtor legislation and its impact on the economic future.
Philip R. Wood explains well the pre-eminence of English law and New York law as the law applicable to international loans and guarantees, bond issues and other capital market transactions, and large corporate mergers and acquisitions. In his correct opinion, the use of these legal systems explained by the role of London and New York as world financial centers; in the case of London, because it is a focus for attracting capital from other parts of the world, and in New York, because it is the financial capital of the US, with a market that is not only huge, but also very deep and liquid. .
The author does not analyze the reason for this financial domination. This would lead to economic explanations about the US dollar as a reserve currency or political explanations such as US hegemony in the international community and also highlights the existence in both systems of a tradition of independent courts with predictable and consolidated jurisprudence in contractual matters.
Philip R. Wood has the dual status of lawyer and expert in banking and financial law, and university professor at Cambridge and Oxford. I had the pleasure of dealing with him when he was a partner in a well-known and excellent international law firm and I remember his insistent opinion on the triumph of English law over New York law. and the growing use of the former in international operations, which today we would possibly accept with some reservation because of Brexit. He would also highlight his very curious point of view on land and agriculture as the only true source of wealth, because it creates surplus production, as opposed to trade and finance where products are exchanged or interest is generated. All this he reminded me in his day to F. Quesnay and to the school of the French Physiocrats of the 18th century, which is still a contradiction in the thinking of someone who has been a great banking lawyer, but who believed more in agriculture.