Key publications
The research group's members have published several treatises, edited volumes and textbooks on topic related to legal culture, legal history and comparative law in the last ten years. In addition, several members, alone or jointly, published articles in high ranking journals both domestically and internationally.
Main content
These excellent publications have contributed to establish legal cultural studies as a separate discipline in Norway and had an impact on the international discourse on the topic. Almost all edited volumes are a result of collaborations between two or more members of the research group. The group's most recent collaboration project is the book Comparing Legal Cultures, which has become the leading textbook on comparative law in Norway. Due to its universal approach and comprehensive and coherent presentation of 15 legal cultures, this book is increasingly used internationally as well. Nine of the group's members contributed to the book with their unique knowledge on particular legal cultures such as Norway, Germany, England & Wales and Italy (See also Hva er rettskulturell kunnskap – og hvorfor jurister trenger det?). In 2019 the members of the research group contributed with 6 articles and a volume of 130 pages to the liber amicorum in honor of the 50th anniversary of the law faculty. Please find a presentation of the most influential publications emerging from a cooperation between group’s members below.
Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde og Knut Einar Skodvin (eds). Rendezvous of Legal Cultures.
Rendezvous of European Legal Cultures is written by Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde og Knut Einar Skodvin, with the purpose of providing a textbook for students in comparative law.
Sören Koch og Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde (eds). Comparing Legal Cultures 1st edition and 2nd revised and extended edition.
Comparing Legal Cultures 1st edition was published in 2017, and the 2nd edition was published in 2020. The book is Norway's newest and most frequently used textbook in comparative law, and shows the strong connection between research and education. Both members and associated members of the research group has contributed in the making of the book, and it is therefore one of many products resulting from the research group's collaborations. The book identifies and explains the special legal historical features of fifteen different legal cultures, and contributes in that manner to create an understanding in regard to challenges on the internationalisation of law, legal pluralism and opposition to such tendencies in society and among legal scholars.
Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde. Fordom og forventning: Ei handbok i rettshistorisk metode.
Fordom og forventning is edited by Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde. The object of the book is to provide methodological tools when studying legal history. The reflections of eight legal historians provide the basis of the book.
Giertsen et al. Rett i Vest: Festskrift til 50-årsjubileet for juristutdanningen i Bergen.
Rett i Vest was published in honor of the Faculty of Law's 50th anniversary. Members of the research group contributed with six articles and a volume of 130 pages.
Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde. Høgsteretts historie 1965-2015: at dømme i sidste instans.
Høgsteretts historie 1965-2015: at dømme i sidste instans is written by Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde, and presents the story of the change that took place in the Norwegian Supreme Court during 1965 until 2015.
Eirik Holmøyvik. Maktfordeling og 1814.
Maktfordeling og 1814 is written by Eirik Holmøyvik and deals with the principle of distribution of power, and explains how it became a key principle in constitutional law from the late 1700.
Eirik Holmøyvik og Dag Michalsen. Lærebok i statsforfatningshistorie.
Lærebok i forfatningshistorie is written by Eirik Holmøyvik and Dag Michalsen. The book is written with the purpose of providing law students with insight in Norwegian constitutional history. The book is funded on research on constitutional history.
Ingvill Helland og Sören Koch. Nordic and Germanic Legal Methods.
Nordic and Germanic Legal Methods: Introducing and comparing different theories of legal sources and principles of interpretation in their legal cultural context, this volume deals with similarities and differences in legal argumentation as obstacles to and facilitators of harmonisation of law in Europe.
Artikler og doktoravhandlinger
Sören Koch. En naturlig rettsorden for det dansk-norske kongeriket – en rettshistorisk analyse av Ludvig Holbergs lærebok i natur- og folkerett. Universitetet i Bergen, 2015.
Sören Koch. Grotius’s Impact on the Scandinavian Theory of Contract Law, Grotiana.
Morten Nadim. Precedents in the 21st century: the evolution of case law in the Norwegian Supreme Court 1970-2016. Universitet i Bergen, 2017
Bernssen, Siri Elisabeth. Besovede Qvindfolks Børn som døde findis: Relasjonelt og sosialt utgangspunkt for barnedrapstiltalte i Hordaland 1642-1799. Heimen, 2018.
Sören Koch and Kristjan Mejrup. The Enlightenment. In Kjell Åke Modeer and John Witte, Law and The Christian Tradition in Scandinavia. The Writings of Great Nordic Jurists, Routledge, 2020.
Sören Koch. Natural Law and the struggle with pietism in eighteenth-century Denmark-Norway - Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754). In Kjell Åke Modeer and John Witte, Law and The Christian Tradition in Scandinavia. The Writings of Great Nordic Jurists, Routledge.
Sören Koch. Konfliktlösung in West-Skandinavien. In: W. Decock (Hrsg.), Konfliktlösung in der Frühen Neuzeit, Handbuch zur Geschichte der Konfliktlösung in Europa.
Sören Koch. Courts of Appeal in Norway. In: Kjell Å Modéer and Martin Sunnqvist (eds.), Suum Cuique Tribuere. Legal Contexts, Judicial Archetypes and Deep-Structures regarding Courts of Appeal and Judiciaries from Early Modern to Late Modern Europe, Institutet för Rättshistorisk Forskning 2018.
Sören Koch. Jus naturae methodo scientifica pertractatum (Natural Law considered according to the Scientific Method) 1740-1748 Christian Freiherr VON WOLFF (1679-1754)” in Martyn, Georges. The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture, Books that made the Law in the Western World. Springer Publishing Company 2016.
Sören Koch. Consequences of changing expectations to law and its institutions Illustrated by the role and background of judges in Norway. Legal History Review 2015.
Want to know more?
You can find the books at oria.no!
