Zwingenden Angehörigenschutz gewährleistet das deutsche Erbrecht durch eine feste Quotenteilhabe: Den Abkömmlingen, den Eltern und dem Ehegatten des Erblassers steht als "Pflichtteil" die Hälfte des Wertes ihres gesetzlichen Erbteils zu, wenn sie durch Verfügung von Todes wegen von der Erbfolge ausgeschlossen sind. Für diese bedarfsunabhängige Beschränkung der Testierfreiheit gibt es keine überzeugenden Gründe. Das vorgestellte Alternativmodell zum Pflichtteilsrecht soll die Reformdiskussion wiederbeleben. Es beruht auf dem Grundgedanken, die Testierfreiheit zu stärken und deshalb die nächsten Angehörigen des Erblassers nur dann zu schützen, wenn sie eines solchen Schutzes tatsächlich bedürfen. Soweit ein solches Schutzbedürfnis allerdings besteht, soll es so weit wie möglich befriedigt werden. Dreh- und Angelpunkt des Reformmodells sind infolgedessen die Unterhaltspflichten des Erblassers, die als Nachlassverbindlichkeiten bestehen bleiben.

By comparison with other areas of private law, the law of succession has been neglected by modern scholars. This volume contributes to its rehabilitation by examining key issues in succession law from a variety of perspectives: national, historical and comparative. In particular it seeks to extend the techniques of legal comparison into an area of law where hitherto they have been little used. The jurisdictions most prominently featured are the mixed jurisdictions of Scotland and South Africa, but there are frequent comparative references, and special attention is given to the Netherlands as the country which has most recently re-written its succession law. The authors of the individual chapters are drawn from Scotland, South Africa, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. Among the topics covered are freedom of testation, testamentary conditions and public policy, forfeiture clauses and events, revocation of wills by changed circumstances, revocation of mutual wills, fideicommissary substitutions, and succession agreements. The volume opens with an overview of the state of comparative law and with a consideration of compulsory heirship in Roman law.

This book considers, in a comparative perspective, important trends and issues affecting the law on rights of personality in jurisdictions drawn from the families of common law, civilian law and mixed legal systems. The main focus is on the private law of personality rights but due regard is paid to the impact thereon of constitutional legislation and other instruments protecting human rights. Table of cases, table of statures and an index are included.

Christian Thomasius was the founding father of the German enlightenment, and as such initiated a second German "reformation". He was a philosopher, educator and journalist, but above all he was a lawyer. He was extraordinarily successful as an academic teacher and was also a prolific writer. Perhaps best known today for his campaign against witch-hunting, he was, in his day, equally renowned for his study of Roman law, of which the Larva Legis is a single but remarkable example. The text reprinted and translated in this book is notable for three reasons. First because of the eminence and influence of its author; second because of the way in which it illustrates the development of the civilian tradition and its critical assessment by lawyers; and third, because it is a key text within the history of one of the main branches of the European law of obligations. As such it contributed to the establishment of a modern and critical approach towards the law of delict in Europe.

Vortrag, gehalten vor der Juristischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin am 15. Juni 2005, mit dem Thema Europaisierung des Privatrechts als Aufgabe und Herausforderung der Rechtsvergleichung.

The emergence of a European private law is one of the great issues on the legal agenda of our time. Among the most prominent initiatives furthering this process is the work of the Commission on European Contract Law. The essays collected in this 2002 volume have their origin within this context. They explore two practically very important topics which had hitherto been largely neglected in comparative legal literature: set-off and 'extinctive' prescription (or limitation of actions). Professor Zimmermann lays the comparative foundations for a common approach which may provide the basis for a set of European principles. At the same time, the essays provide practical examples of the arguments that can be employed in the process of harmonising European private law on a rational basis. They explore topics such as the comparative experiences in the various modern legal systems and the direction in which the international development is heading.

Unjustified enrichment has been one of the most intellectually vital areas of private law. There is, however, still no unanimity among civil-law and common-law legal systems about how to structure this important branch of the law of obligations. Several key issues are considered comparatively in this 2002 book, including grounds for recovery of enrichment, defences, third-party enrichment, as well as proprietary and taxonomic questions. Two contributors deal with each topic, one a representative of a common-law system, the other a representative of a civil-law or mixed system. This approach illuminates not just similarities or differences between systems, but also what different systems can learn from one another. In an area of law whose territory is still partially uncharted and whose borders are contested, such comparative perspectives will be valuable for both academic analysis of the law and its development by the courts.

For some Western European legal systems the principle of good faith has proved central to the development of their law of contracts, while in others it has been marginalized or even rejected. This book starts by surveying the use or neglect of good faith in these legal systems and explaining its historical origins. The central part of the book takes thirty situations which would, in some legal systems, attract the application of good faith, analyses them according to fifteen national legal systems and assesses the practical significance of both the principle of good faith and its relationship to other contractual and non-contractual doctrines and forms of regulation in each situation. The book concludes by explaining how European lawyers, whether from a civil or common law background, may need to come to terms with the principle of good faith. This was the first completed project of The Common Core of European Private Law launched at the University of Trento.

On 1 January 2000 the German Civil Code (BGB) became one hundred years old. It had been remarkably resilient throughout a century marked by catastrophic upheavals and a succession of fundamentally different political regimes. Two years later, however, the most sweeping individual reform ever to have affected the Code entered into force. This was the Modernization of the Law of Obligations Act: triggered by the necessity to implement the European Consumer Sales Directive, but going far beyond what was required by the European Community. The most important practical implication of the Modernization Act is the fundamental reform of the German law of prescription. However, the most remarkable feature of the revised BGB in terms of innovative doctrine is the new regime concerning liability for general non-performance, and for non-conformity in sales law. Radically, the face of the BGB has been changed by the incorporation of a number of special statutes aiming at the protection of consumers. The draftsmen of the new law have thus made an effort to streamline, or harmonize, general contract law and consumer contract law. The four topics covered in Chapters 2-5 of the book are prescription, remedies for non-performance, liability for non-conformity, and consumer contract law. In all these cases a historical or comparative perspective is adopted in order to analyze and assess the new rules of German law. Even in its radically new form the German Civil Code continues to be a characteristic manifestation of German legal culture. At the same time, however, the reform has moved German contract law considerably closer to European thinking patterns. Termed 'a milestone on the path towards a European Civil Code', this book offers a unique and authoritative insight into the new German law of obligations.

The emergence of a European private law is a key legal issue today. Set-off and "extinctive" prescription are neglected topics in comparative literature. Reinhard Zimmermann maps out a model for a common European approach, providing practical examples of the arguments that may be employed in the process of harmonizing European private law. The essays originated during his work with the Commission on European Contract Law (the "Lando-Commission"), whose task is the "restatement" of European contract law. This volume is for comparative lawyers and legal historians.

Unjustified enrichment is one of the most intellectually vital areas of private law. However, little unanimity exists among civil-law and common-law legal systems about structuring this important branch of the law of obligations. This book analyzes a range of key issues which are considered respectively by a representative of a common-law, as well as a civil-law system. The approach highlights similarities and differences between systems, and what each can learn from the other.

This book contains the text on which Professor Zimmermann's Clarendon Lectures at the University of Oxford in October 1999 were based.

This book starts by surveying the use or neglect of good faith in European contract law and traces its historical origins. Its central part takes thirty hypothetical situations that have attracted the application of good faith and analyzes them according to fifteen national legal systems. It concludes by explaining how European lawyers, whether from a civil or common law background, need to come to terms with the principle of good faith.

This is a scholarly survey of the Law of Obligations from classical to modern times. It is a marvellous work of historical synthesis which discusses each contract, tort, and liability based on unjust enrichment with great clarity and traces their development over hundreds of years through the legal systems of Europe. It is not merely a work of Roman legal scholarship. It is a treasure-house of ideas and arguments as well as information and scholarship relating to the Law of Obligations. It will be used by scholars of private law throughout the world for many years to come.

In this book Franz Wieacker tells how legal thinking, writing and teaching started in Europe and how it developed. He begins in the High Middle Ages and describes how the Glossators laid down the foundations by applying methodical criticism and exegesis to the Digest of Justinian. As Reinhard Zimmermann's foreword shows, Wieacker's way of telling the history of European legal thought from its origins in medieval Bologna down to the present day and of elucidating the intellectual conditions for its development is a stunning achievement. One of the great strengths of the book lies in its demonstration of the constant interaction between the thinking of lawyers and the general philosophical ideas of their time: between Scholasticism and medieval legal science, between the enlightenment and the Law of Reason, between Classicism (and Romanticism) and Savigny's Historical School of Law. It is hardly surprising that so ambitious and erudite a work should have become a classic since 1952, when it was first published in German. Now Tony Weir's brilliant translation makes the seond and final edition accessible to English-speaking scholars the world over.

Among the most significant legal developments of our time is the emergence of a European private law. The European Union has enacted regulations and directives which profoundly affect the practice, teaching and study of core areas of 'classical' private law. Within Europe, commissions have formulated principles of European contract, tort, family and insolvency law as well as aspects of commercial law. Furthermore, uniform private law can be found in a number of international conventions and sets of principles. This second edition gathers together fundamental texts from these three sources into one convenient volume. Its emphasis is on general civil and commercial law, particularly on the obligations and property aspects of these. This second edition is a sister volume to the original German edition, now in its 5th edition.

Kunstliche Ruinen sind Bauwerke, die mehr oder weniger stark verfallen sind, die jedoch bewusst so angelegt worden sind. Das fruheste bekannte Beispiel stammt etwa aus dem Jahr 1535. Kunstliche Ruinen sind hinsichtlich ihrer kunst- und geistesgeschichtlichen Implikate interessant: Die vorliegende Studie untersucht sie auf ihre vielfaltigen und weitreichenden (kunst-)historischen und ideologischen Bezuge hin. Dem Band vorangestellt ist eine empirische Bestandsaufnahme aller bekannten kunstlichen Ruinen im deutschen Sprachraum und aller wichtigen Bauten der ubrigen europaischen Lander, vor allem England und Italien. Bei der Deutung kunstlicher Ruinen erweisen sich theologische, geschichtsphilosophische und asthetische Auffassungen des Mittelalters als Schlussel fur die Interpretation des Ruinenmotivs uberhaupt, sei es in der Gartenkunst, in der Malerei oder in der Literatur.