The title of my address promises more than I can keep. As a precaution, I should at least add a question mark to this title, because I want to discuss whether there are any noteworthy recent developments in international sales law at all, and whether or not they are desirable. By “international sales law”, I understand Uniform Sales Law which is international for three reasons: first, because it applies to international sales; second, because it is in force in several countries; and finally, because it has been worked out “internationally”, i.e. by lawyers from diverse legal backgrounds. What I am talking about, therefore, is Uniform Sales Law within the meaning of the Hague Uniform Laws on International Sales—which are in operation also in Israel—as well as the Sales Convention which was passed at a diplomatic conference in Vienna in 1980. As to developments I would like to give a short overview of the reception the Hague Uniform Sales Law has received in Germany.

As 1984 approaches, Orwell's vision throws its forward shadow over our perception of our situation. No one ever doubted that law could be made an instrument of tyranny. But there are aspects of 1984 which prompt us to ask whether even the concept of law does not itself constitute a social problem, specifically a deprivation of certain freedoms which in other contexts we value. I shall not be concerned with the extent to which the content of particular legal systems tyrannise their subjects. Rather, my concern is with the ways in which law, by virtue of its formal nature, deprives the subjects of a legal system of freedom. So considered, there are two quite distinct accusations of tyranny which may be levelled at the law: one is so-called “legalism”, which may be regarded as a tyranny of the (intellectual) right; the other is existentialism, viewed as a tyranny of the (intellectual) left. I shall suggest that these two tyrannies in fact represent extreme points on a single spectrum, and that this spectrum may be observed not only in the operation of legal systems, but also in legal philosophy and indeed in theology. In fact, the parallels between legal philosophy and theology may be taken to reflect different (but not historically unrelated) modes of address of the same basic issue in the history of ideas.

Israeli family law is essentially governed by the personal law of the parties concerned since the religious affiliation of the litigants forms the basis for determination of the applicable personal law. This phenomenon is historically rooted in the milet (religious communities) system practised in the Ottoman Empire, which included Palestine until 1917. Ottoman law, regarding itself as an integral part of Moslem law, adopted the fundamental Islamic notion that its law applied to the “faithful” alone. Hence the judicial autonomy extended to “non-believers”, especially the Jewish and Christian communities. These were subject to their own ecclesiastical courts, administered and supervised by their respective religious heads and authorities. In the second half of the 19th century, with the development of contemporary legal systems, the Ottoman legal system underwent a transition from a personal law to a uniform territorial law in most legal fields. The jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, Moslem as well as Jewish and Christian, was restricted to purely religious and family matters. The British Mandate, which in 1917 replaced the Ottoman rule in Palestine, principally retained the existing legal order under which the ecclesiastical courts of the respective religious communities were invested with exclusive jurisdiction in matters of marriage and divorce as well as other matters of personal status.

The law's treatment of abortion has undergone a fundamental transformation in the present century which has been marked by a clear trend towards decriminalization of the matter vis-à-vis the abortionist and the woman. The increasing secularization of society, the advance of libertarian thinking in western democracies and the movement towards social equality for women has increasingly led to the view that the abortion decision is one which properly belongs to the private realm of the individual woman. This view has been reinforced by utilitarian arguments founded on acknowledgement of the fact that the criminal prohibition has always been evaded by a resort to illegal procedures with all the danger to the woman's health that this entails.

Despite religious and moral objections based on the interest in protecting fetal life, the law has responded to pressures for the legitimization of abortion in varying degrees. In some countries abortion has been totally decriminalized and indeed made available on demand; in others decriminalization has been only partial and abortion allowed only upon a showing of cause defined by statute (abortion on cause) or only at certain stages of pregnancy.

On the whole, the law has remained silent as to the status of the father in the abortion decision; in any event he was not subject to any criminal sanction.

In its desire to reduce the loss and expense involved in the occurrence of accidents, organized society is likely to consider various factors determining the nature of the rules (whether legal or other) that will guide it in its decision. These factors may include moral fault (in the accepted meaning of the term), economic fault or the relative wealth of the parties involved in causing the loss.

The purpose of this article is to examine the third factor, ie‥ relative wealth. By “relative wealth of the parties” we mean the quantity of property of monetary value in the hands of each of the parties relative to the aggregate property of the other parties and to the property of each. The parties in question are not necessarily those physically involved in causing the damage but those persons or groups which the rules for allocation of loss regard as potential bearers of the loss.