Collection of Source Materials on European Private Law
EC regulations create immediately binding rules and EC directives oblige the member-states to harmonise their laws. Given the shared goal of integrating the various markets into one single European market, disparate outcomes cannot hinge on whether a particular set of circumstances has a domestic or a cross-border nature. Private law in the European Union will therefore necessarily penetrate, change and perhaps one day abrogate the national private law systems of the member-states. Its scholarly treatment however is still in its initial stages and is more frequently characterised by an outright rejection than by a push towards intellectual penetration. This broad reluctance can be explained by the particular nature of the process which is distinct from traditional private law per se: The matter is necessarily multi-lingual and must avoid the terminology of national private law systems in order to proclaim its autonomy. It is oriented towards political goals, in particular the realisation of a single European market, and therefore is often intertwined with provisions of public law that serve the same aims; thus, it also does not appear in public discussions as private law of the community. Up to this point, its regulations are isolated and not comprehensive; they can hardly be understood through the lens of private law schemes.
As strange as the private law measures of the EC may thus seem, their quantity and significance has in the meantime become so pronounced that their careful consideration is inescapable. This collection of texts, compiled at the Institute under the leadership of Jürgen Basedow, provides a basis in that regard. It meets the needs of legal practice by making the private law of the EC accessible since the requirement of interpreting national laws in accordance with Community law routinely requires reference to Community texts. At the same time, the collection facilitates scholarly analysis and can thereby perhaps also contribute to the improvement of the measures and their comprehension.
The printed texts do not exhaustively reproduce the EC private law measures; the selection focussed on legal acts that exclusively or prevailingly deal with private law. Community law also contains numerous measures that touch upon private law only within individual provisions, thus for example, directives on banking law, stock exchange law or insurance law as well as navigation regulations for the transportation market. The integration into the systematic interrelation of each individual legal act does not however generally allow the isolated reproduction of private law regulations and there does not exist room for a complete reproduction of all legal acts . Reproduction of secondary competition law texts has been completely abstained from even though the block exemption pursuant to Art. 81(2) of the EC Treaty continually impacts the enforceability of contracts and, hence, directly relates to private law as well. However, economic law is in the foreground here and the regulations are so numerous that even in a single language they would fill an entire volume. Reproduced are acts that can fundamentally be divided into seven legal areas: (1) Corporate law; (2) Employment law; (3) The law of obligations with primary emphasis on consumer protection law; (4) Advertisement law[; (5) Copyright law; (6) Intellectual property law[; (7) Private international law. The first and second sections are in Volume I, the third and fourth in Volume II, and the fifth, sixth and seventh in Volume III. All three volumes have already been published.
The European texts are authoritative in multiple languages. A book which reproduces all of them would be desirable but would be hardly publishable in light of its scale and hardly purchasable in light of its price. These volumes have been conceived with the aim of presenting various language versions of the same legal act in a synopsizing compendium that allows for repeated comparison. The result has been a limitation to four languages, the selection being those widely used in the Community. The selection also comprises those languages used by the actual organs of the Community in the preparation of the measures.
As strange as the private law measures of the EC may thus seem, their quantity and significance has in the meantime become so pronounced that their careful consideration is inescapable. This collection of texts, compiled at the Institute under the leadership of Jürgen Basedow, provides a basis in that regard. It meets the needs of legal practice by making the private law of the EC accessible since the requirement of interpreting national laws in accordance with Community law routinely requires reference to Community texts. At the same time, the collection facilitates scholarly analysis and can thereby perhaps also contribute to the improvement of the measures and their comprehension.
The printed texts do not exhaustively reproduce the EC private law measures; the selection focussed on legal acts that exclusively or prevailingly deal with private law. Community law also contains numerous measures that touch upon private law only within individual provisions, thus for example, directives on banking law, stock exchange law or insurance law as well as navigation regulations for the transportation market. The integration into the systematic interrelation of each individual legal act does not however generally allow the isolated reproduction of private law regulations and there does not exist room for a complete reproduction of all legal acts . Reproduction of secondary competition law texts has been completely abstained from even though the block exemption pursuant to Art. 81(2) of the EC Treaty continually impacts the enforceability of contracts and, hence, directly relates to private law as well. However, economic law is in the foreground here and the regulations are so numerous that even in a single language they would fill an entire volume. Reproduced are acts that can fundamentally be divided into seven legal areas: (1) Corporate law; (2) Employment law; (3) The law of obligations with primary emphasis on consumer protection law; (4) Advertisement law[; (5) Copyright law; (6) Intellectual property law[; (7) Private international law. The first and second sections are in Volume I, the third and fourth in Volume II, and the fifth, sixth and seventh in Volume III. All three volumes have already been published.
The European texts are authoritative in multiple languages. A book which reproduces all of them would be desirable but would be hardly publishable in light of its scale and hardly purchasable in light of its price. These volumes have been conceived with the aim of presenting various language versions of the same legal act in a synopsizing compendium that allows for repeated comparison. The result has been a limitation to four languages, the selection being those widely used in the Community. The selection also comprises those languages used by the actual organs of the Community in the preparation of the measures.