2.3.5 Juristic Writings and Professional Opinions

• Meaning: the works of scholars and the considered opinions of the profession as a persuasive source — not law of themselves, but reasoning courts borrow.• In civil-law systems: doctrinal writing ("la doctrine") is a recognised source in practice — the great commentators (from the medieval glossators on Justinian's code to modern treatises) shaped how codes are read.• In common-law systems: books of authority — Coke, Blackstone's Commentaries, Bracton — cited as evidence of the law's ancient state; living scholars cited in argument (Salmond, Pollock, Dicey, Hart; in South Asia, the standard texts on the Codes).• Professional opinion: the consensus of the bar and bench on a proposition — and in international law, opinio juris (states' conduct from a sense of legal obligation), one of custom's two elements in the Statute of the International Court of Justice's formulation.• Nepal: Supreme Court benches cite Nepali and foreign jurists (and foreign case law) when interpreting — a healthy sign of a persuasive source at work; the reference list of this very course is the juristic literature of Nepali jurisprudence (Sangroula, Belbase, Mukhia — Unit 1.4).