The Present State of European Private Law

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9529994
AutoresReinhard Zimmermann (0000-0003-0348-7929, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen57
Número2
Páginas479-512
Fecha de publicación2009-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe American Journal of Comparative Law (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-919X • E-ISSN: 2326-9197
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5131/ajcl.2008.0014
OpenAlexW2093356630
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas8

The Article attempts to assess where we stand today in our endeavors to create a common European private law. General contract law and sales law have been, and will continue to be, at the center of attention. Today we are faced with a bewildering variety of documents purporting to establish common ground, among them the Principles of European Contract Law, the Acquis Principles, the Draft Common Frame of Reference, the Consumer Sales Directive, a Proposal for a Directive on Consumer Rights, the United Nations Convention for the International Sale of Goods, and the Principles of European Sales Law. The Article examines the relationship between these documents and asks to what extent they reflect a coherent and satisfactory picture of acquis communautaire and acquis commun. In other fields (special contracts other than sale and extra-contractual obligations), the search for doctrinal structures which are both recognizably European and teleologically adequate has only just begun. Finally there are subjects, such as the law of succession, where the very legitimacy of legal harmonization has been questioned. The Article concludes that all areas of private law should become the subject of genuinely European, as opposed to national, scholarship but that none of them is ready to be cast into an official European instrument, whether under the name of Code, or Common Frame of Reference

Business · Commercial law · Common law · Comparative law · Convention · Directive · Economics · European union · Harmonization · International trade · Law and economics · Legitimacy · Member state · Member states · Political science · Private law · Conflict of Laws and Jurisdiction · European and International Contract Law · Law · Legal principles and applications