ABSTRACT
References 283
An international book, such as this one, cannot possibly cover all the different jurisdictions in which its readers work. This chapter will, therefore, address the issues that are general to many legal systems. This is easier for anglophone ones (the UK, Commonwealth, United States, and for the time being Hong Kong) which have a common tradition incorporating much common law – law made by judges’ precedent as opposed to statute law made by legislatures – and even share some court rulings, such as the famous Banks v Goodfellow judgement (see below under 32.3.3, Capacity to make a will). However, francophone jurisdictions (France, francophone Africa and the Territoires d’Outre-Mer) share a completely different basis, the Napoleonic Code, which has also left its mark on German law; whereas the Netherlands and to an extent South Africa have a tradition of Roman Dutch law. As this book is in English and the author is not familiar with Napoleonic or Roman Dutch law, with regret, focus is mainly on the Anglophone system.
