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The Brazilian Connection - Part IIBack in the Fall of 2008, I blogged about a trip to Sao Paulo that I had just completed. This blog is occasioned by two events, another trip to Sao Paulo and a series of articles in the Wall Street Journal this week about Brazil entitled "For Brazil,It's Finally Tomorrow:How the Country of the Future Has at Last Made It - and What Remains to Be Done". The article appeared about a week after my return and verified what I found - that Brazil is going through an amazing economic time and positioning itself to be the economic leader of South America. Brazil's emergence underscores the value of the connection that Cumberland has with the Brazilian judiciary. In the 1990's Professor Bo Cole developed our Masters of Comparative Law program for Brazilian judges and over 40 judges have either received the degree or are currently in the program. The judges spend two summers in residence in Birmingham and at the Cumberland program in Cambridge and then write a comparative law thesis. Some of Brazil's brightest and most capable judges are graduates. Professor Mike Floyd now ably directs the program. One of the great benefits of my travels is learning more about legal system in Brazil which is based on a European civil law system which draws heavily from countries like France, Germany and Portugal. One interesting feature of the system, however, is that Brazil, unlike its other civil law counterparts, has limited stare decisis. This very interesting development is due, in part, to Professor Cole's years of work with the Brazilian judiciary. Our plans for the coming years are to expand the comparative law aspects of this program and to create more connection between Brazilian judges and lawyers and our campus in Birmingham. We are currently planning to create a Visiting Scholar in Residence Program which will bring Brazilian judges and lawyers to campus to interact with our faculty and students. We are proud of our connection with Brazil and look forward to expanding it in the future. |