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Codification

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Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy

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Introduction

Codification is a standard means for making the law public and available through recording it in written texts. It is a tool known since the law’s early development. Albeit both its naming and conceptual definition may vary from age to age and culture to culture – for, as widely accepted, “no a priori codification concept exists […], therefore the exploration of this concept involves empirical work” (Ermacora 1964, 225) – in a generalizing manner it can be summarized in that it is (1) a law-consolidating (2) compilation in (3) a systemic and (4) written form (5) enacted with formal validity (Varga 2011, 262–272); or, simply stated, it is “a systematic and exhaustive regulation of a comprehensive area of the law” (Basedow 2009, 997).

Historical Developments

The fundamental task of codification in antiquity was the exclusion of any doubts in the presentation of the law, for example, the restoration by the Laws of Hammurabiof the validity of ancient traditions in accordance...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, Department of Legal Philosophy, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary

    Csaba Varga

  2. Institute for Legal Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

    Csaba Varga

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  1. Csaba Varga
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Correspondence to Csaba Varga .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Regents Professor of the University, System of Maryland and Director of the University of Baltimore Center for International and Comparative Law, University of Baltimore School of Law, Baltimore, USA

    Mortimer Sellers

  2. Professor for Legal and Social Philosophy, Department of Legal Theory International and European Law, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

    Stephan Kirste

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Theory, Sociology and Philosophy of Law, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Law, Belgrade, Serbia

    Miodrag Jovanovic

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Varga, C. (2023). Codification. In: Sellers, M., Kirste, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6519-1_398

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