Functional aspects of collective decision mechanisms under norm-based legal uncertainty

Gunnar Nordén is an economist and lawyer. He is presently J.S.D. fellow at Yale Law School and newly appointed external lecturer at the law department. His work lies in the intersection of legal theory and law&economics.

Abstract:
Mechanisms intrinsic to the legal system separate questions of law and fact. Even pure questions of law are typically decided by multi-member panels organized in complex hierarchies and governed by complex procedural laws. This arguably reflects a structural feature of substantive law: legal norms (or legal resources, more generally) do not determine outcomes uniquely under all admissible complexes of conditioning facts.

Under uncertainty, the confluence between substantive and procedural law systematically affects outcomes, raising important questions on both a practical and a theoretical level. This will be demonstrated in the presentation, using simple examples from private law in the context of majority-voting collective mechanisms.

Register before April 26 at seminar.jur@cbs.dk