Just Curious

Some progress in school

I got to work on Benjamin Liebman's article on the development of defamation laws in China, which is to appear in the coming issue of the International Law Journal. This should be fun since the editors-in-charge have announced that they need someone who reads and writes Chinese to work on this project...

In the meantime, I am working on F.A. Hayek's "Road to Serfdom," which curiously is a book that I've never read in its entirety...it is very thought-provocative, and although the scenarios Hayek posted are a little bit dated, one could see how many of his prophecies, etc. still pertain to the various social problem we are facing today. Another book that I'm half-done with is Charles Fried's "Contract as Promise," which sought to defend the classical views on the moral foundations of the Law of Contracts, namely, that a promisor's obligation to live up to his promise is the fulfillment of the general covenant of "promise," which moral force lies on the Kantian principles of trust and individuals-as-ends. Interesting read, though Prof. Fried seems to himself admit that there are too many occassions (gaps in the promise-making process, etc.) that may force courts to render judgments basing on some other premise external to the promise the parties have made, such as the notions of restitution and reliance, which are in some sense tortious (restitution in particular has its roots in the general law of remedies.)

posted by James Chang @ 3:38 PM