Since there is life on earth, organism have always been busy with permanent modification and stratification. People today are still discovering connections making sense of happenings billions of years ago, and of course there is not always consens about the findings. Oldest known classifications for living beings are from greek philosophers and were further developed continuously into more subtle taxonomies. Basically the first organic cells on earth took something in and excreted something. Doing this, they first developped labor division within the cell, later cell division. Billion years later human animals evolved from their ancestors with the same basic logic. The input is the product they need (what and where)? What is called “emotion”, where is called “semantics”. The tools and artefacts, humans need substitute, complete or canibalize each other.
Research in physics and chemistry is questioning theories applied today and is based also on chemical evolution. Alternative periodic tables, new hints from planetary science and emerging technologies are revoluting the worldview of our representatives differently.
The social models involved work according to rules (semantics and syntax) sometimes difficult to understand and agree upon. Oldest social rules for humans are known since the old egyptians, famous for the pyramids. Euclid released his works about axiomatic geometry thousands of years later. The rules of other cultures in history are not known and researched today. Since mankind never could agree on social contracts, different laws and legal systems have developed different goals and there always have been conflicts as with other groups and species. Different social orders and economic systems evolved and are in competition with each other. If organisms manage to survive and grow, this is probably due not to one, but many factors.
To illustrate today’s diversity of laws concerning property rights, here some examples:
The current private and company law of today’s Federal Republic of Germany came into force in 1900. The many predecessor states had different provisions and laws or applied the napoleonic code de commerce from 1807, ment as model law. It took several decades longer until they could agree about structure and contents, frontiers and coalitions of their legislation (constitutional conflict). It was annulated by the governments, that initiated the two world wars . The first compilation of laws for a territory of the Holy Roman Empire was the Sachsenspiegel from Eyke von Repkow written about 1235 in latin language on Falkenstein and offended by the neighbour counts of Blankenburg, the imperial palace of Quedlinburg and the bishop of Halberstadt. Laws for limited liability companies were codified later in more detail (for public limited companies in the Stock Corporation Act, for private limited companies in the Limited Liability Company Act). Companies differ today particularly in capital requirement, liability, organs and publication duties.
The swiss law of obligations is still celebrating itself as one of the most simple company acts of the world. It was written by the lawyer Eugen Huber as synopsis of cantonal laws, ratified unanimously 1907 and applied since 1912. The swiss constitution came into power already 1848, and was initiated by Guillaume Henri Dufour in a victory against the separate alliance. He was cartographer and also the founder of the International Red Cross. The highest mountain of Switzerland is named after him. This is also the history of Credit Suisse, the bank founded by Alfred Escher, who initiated industrialization in Switzerand, controlled by competition authorities and political parties. Like everywhere, the main challenge was to create an economic structure. Switzerland is a direct democracy and offers the possibility of popular initiatives and legislation with known pros and cons. Of course already simple key data differ from all other civil laws in the world. The Swiss Confederation from 1291 is often interpreted as early revolution. It was first mentioned when Rudolf I became the first German King of the House of Habsburg after the Great Interregnum and the regency of Hohenstaufen. He never got emperor. The Executive-Federal Council is said to have been part of the electoral college, that was supposed to elect the emperor.
The danish flag (Dannebrog) is supposed to be the oldest flag of the word. It obviously fell from the sky 1208 in a battle in Estonia. This led to the laws of Scania, Zealand and Jutland. Denmark recently amended the corporate law to correct under-representation of population segments in corporations (Heckman correction), increase foreign direct investment and promote partnerships. Of course this has effects on other spheres outside company law, most importantly person, family and inheritance law (segmentation of groups, parties and religions). Denmark has an EU opt-out for justice and home affairs, but voted in favor of the EU security and foreign policy in 2022 and lost military sovereignty. It is intended to find the roots of conflicts, all member states of the European Union ought to agree upon and encourage peace. Before it had a defense reservation. The referendum was followed by landslide elections (Folketingsvalget 2022) in favor of the populist party, at the expense of conservative liberals to increase competition among legislators.
Like in the European Union, different territorial juristictions of the United States, ensured by the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, are debating about clauses of model corporation laws for example default rules regarding preemptive rights in stock companies. The name derives from the right to emption land by settlers on federal lands and symbolizes the right to partizipate in capital increase. The Washington Business Corporation Act was recently changed in favor of the model law and new shareholders, not forcibly to be applied by the corporations of this state like Microsoft or Amazon, considered as self-regulatory and controlled by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and competition authorities outside the US.
Also the Russian Federation is and was undergoing many struggles about jurisdiction and hierarchies. Russkaya Pravda was the first attempt to establish a universal law system. As all hegemonies also Russia engaged in colonialization, and territorial disputes are known since the Kievian Rus‘ in the 9th century. Before the first russian revolution in 1905 most people lived in poverty or where starving. The parliament (Duma) was formed and a multi-party system was established. After the rise of Lenin, the emperor and patriarch were disposed and a one party system without private property established. The Soviet Union was dissoluted in 1991. The relationships among the states and people on the former territory of the Russian Empire and later Soviet Union, and their supranational organization is still subject to negotiation as it is since its formation. Here the recent laws of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
European hegonomies were introduced or caused by modern european colonialism started by John I of Portugal sometimes refered to as the good or the great in the early age of discovery. From Portugal Hegenomy went to Spain, the Netherlands, France and Britain. Businesses were conducted by trading companies, chartered by the crown and offering equity investment to the public. Conflics arouse for territorial, religious, sociocultural or other political reasons and hundreds of millions of people lost their lifes or money during this times, what left traces in the consciousness of threatened communities until today. Sweden was the first european country that issued paper money in 1661 by Stockholms Banco and went bancrupt when it was decoupled from commodity reserves (banknotes). In 1668 the Riksbank was founded, to prevent inference of the king and to shift power to the estates.
Most Parliamentary systems evolved from feudalism, challenged by reformations, industrialization and revolutions. The first european parliament were the Cortez of Leon of 1188 in a dispute with Portugal. The initiative for a law comes from the parliament, government or president (king). If the president of the parliament is setting the agenda he has a higher rank than the head of government or president, since an “underdog” may propose a law, and get majority. In presidential systems and some constitutional monarchies, the head of the state can refuse to approve a law (not only for flaws of the legislative procedure, but content and conscience), his rank is higher than of the head of government. If the head of the state is a monarch, this is called royal assent. There were many civil wars and revolutions in history due to absolutism or the royal assent. The power of a president may be changed, as Finland did three times since 1991 in favor of the parliament. International organizations like the European Union may elaborate proposals and directives, but national voters, parliaments, governments or head of states have to ratify them, except they delegated rights to EU institutions (no opt-out), like danish voters did for defense in a referendum 2022, that was followed by landslide elections against it. Here the example of EU delegations of Sweden. Sweden applied for NATO membership in 2022, but was rejected by some member states. Sweden has no comprehensive civil code, but a code of statutes also including the constitution similar to common law systems introduced in England 1066 by William the Conqueror. He rode through the country and spoke law, according to his morals, advocates had to discuss and try to generalize with more or less success. If presidents, monarchs, governments, parliaments or people refuse to ratify a law, the European Commission has the possibility to complain (infringement) with the Court of Justice, but no possibility of enforcement in the member states, because the European Union has no executive power. Law enforcement is regulated differently in every country and sometimes also in federal states of those countries.
Since every person or company has to be located on a territory, public law is dealing with the management and administration of people and frontiers. Governance had many forms since human existance, is still researched by culture archeologists and there have always been hierarchies and interactions between different regions. In the european case the Roman Empire with its subdivisions was a highly regulated construct with many civil wars, but did not rule the world, the same with the Carolingian Empire or the Holy Roman Empire; its internal disputes and conflicts with France, the Byzantine and Ottoman Empire on european soil. Christianization and islamization both with different ethical subentities led to new challenges. A prominent example is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, his father the carpenter Joseph of Nazareth, and the conflicting rules on the territory of the Roman Empire under the rule of Augustus, also in conflict with other spiritualities and other empires at this time and countries today.
Spatial planning legislation is dealing with the use of land. If government fails, a constitutional crisis occurs, that may lead to many forms of agression or anarchy within the territory in question, often forgotten when interpretating history. People in Europe very often died of hunger due to crop failure, or miserable weather conditions. For example the floodings of the north sea are recorded since 1164 but angles and saxons left the area already 400 due to miserable weather to govern Anglo-Saxony after roman rule, and new settlements were built only around 700 by new immigrants, when new technologies were applied by the frisians. The reasons for the migration period are not well understood today, but weather conditions were of course a major factor. In other cases people were starved due to political reasons and wars, like the city of Paris for the german war of unification in 1871. The new country was founded in Versailles after the german victory in a thousand year old French–Habsburg rivalry, despite Germany is neither the successor of the Roman nor Holy Roman Empire, that consisted of abot 300 states. This is why the peace treaty after the first world war is called Treaty of Versailles. It included the foundation of the Leage of Nations that was incapable of preventing aggression as the later history showed, as the United Nations are today. Austria is forbidden to join Germany formally since the first world war (Anschlussverbot), to prevent a “third empire” under prussian rule, which happened (Succession of the Roman Empire). As you know Prussia is Russia and Poland today.
The Swedish Riksbank is awarding Nobel Prizes for Economics since 1969. The prize for trade blocks went 1999 to the canadian Robert Mundell, is based on the gravity model of trade, had relevance for the introduction of the Euro and was critisized by proponents of global free trade. It is also primarily arguing with the similarity of population clusters, also critisized . Further expansions, developments into a banking, fiscal, political and social union are in discussion and dependent on agreements about public finance.
Due to a lack of international authority, anarchy and conflicts of law, some legislative and executive powers, international and human right organizations are in a daily fight for justice for the population segments they represent, with more or less success.
Weihler 