Principles of European Law on Personal Security Published
17.10.2007
Under the supervision of Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Ulrich Drobnig, a fixed working group at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Law has recently published the Principles of European Law on Personal Security.The book is the fruit of many years of intensive comparative law research on national European legal systems. It presents nearly 40 common European rules on personal security. Preceded by a number of general rules on personal security, the emphasis in the work is specific rules for suretyship and guarantee. Concluding sections set forth special rules for the protection of consumers who have assumed a personal security. Each rule is clarified with extensive commentary and national notes accompanying each rule explain to what extent the rules conform to or deviate from the national legal regulations of the 15 original EU Member States.
The work is one of a series of research projects which, through the comparison of legal provisions found in the various national European legal systems, seeks to formulate common legal principles which may serve as the foundation for a harmonisation of civil law in Europe. Together with researchers from throughout Europe, the Max Planck Institute is participating in a number of these research initiatives – an example being the Study Group on a European Civil Code, under whose auspices not only principles on the law of personal security have been formulated but also under which proposals for the arrangement of a European insurance contract law are being devised at the Institute under the leadership of Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Basedow.
The Principles of European Contract Law (PECL) establish a general framework for setting out the European rules on personal security. The presently released volume on personal security thus supplements the foundational work already completed upon a common European law of contract. Taken in their totality, these works addressing general and specific principles of contract law as well as essential questions on interests in movable property serve as a basis for the Common Frame of Reference which is currently being worked on by both researchers as well as the European Commission and is to be published in 2008.
Led by Professor Drobnig, members of the working group on personal and proprietary security presently include Ole Böger, Dr. Francesca Fiorentini, Judith Hauck and Dr. Malene Stein Poulsen.
Drobnig, Ulrich (ed.), Personal Security - PEL Pers. Sec., Sellier Publishers (Munich 2007), XXI, 567 pages., released in the series Principles of European Law, Vol. 4 (in English with Danish, German, French, Dutch, Italian and Spanish translations of the principles).