Besides contract law the wish for Europeanization increasingly includes a second important area of traditional private law: the law on non-contractual liability (liability for fault and strict liability in torts). Among others, two international research groups are working in this field of law: the Group on European Tort Law led by Helmut Koziol and Jaap Spier and the Study Group on a European Civil Code initiated by Christian von Bar. The model rules prepared by each group are however significantly different both in their fundamental principles and several particular aspects. With the prospect of providing a clarifying account from a comparative perspective, a symposium on the key issues of a European tort law was organized by Reinhard Zimmermann in September 2001 framed within the private law section of the German Society for Comparative Law (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rechtsvergleichung). The following presentations were given:
 
Gerhard Wagner (Bonn), Grundstrukturen eines Europäischen Deliktsrechts (Generalreferat)
 
David Ibbetson (Cambridge): The historical development of the law of torts and of the law of delict - a comparative evaluation
 
Daniel Visser (Cape Town): The structural foundations of the law of delict in South Africa and Scotland - Lessons from two mixed jurisdictions
 
Pierre Widmer (Lausanne): Die Reform und Vereinheitlichung des schweizerischen Haftpflichtrechts - Motive und Ziele
 
John Blackie (Strathclyde): Principles of a European Law of Delict according to the Study Group on a European Civil Code
 
Nomos published the accompanying book, Zimmermann (ed.), Grundstrukturen eines Europäischen Deliktsrechts (2003) within the series „Arbeiten zur Rechtsvergleichung“, volume 204.
 
The symposium was preceeded by preparatory essays from Nils Jansen, Auf dem Wege zu einem europäischen Haftungsrecht, Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht 2001, 30 ff., Christian von Bar, Konturen des Deliktsrechtskonzepts der Study Group on a European Civil Code: Ein Werkstattbericht, Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht 2001, 515 ff. and Daniel Koch, Die Gesamtrevision des schweizerischen Haftpflichtrechts, Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht 2001, 753 ff.; as an earlier contribution Jaap Spier/Olav A. Haazen, The European Group on Tort Law ("Tilburg Group"), Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht 1999, 469 ff. Closely connected with this topic is the post-doctoral work „Die Struktur des Haftungsrechts“ (2003), written by Nils Jansen and supervised by Reinhard Zimmermann.
 
A similarly themed German-Spanish symposium took place at the Max Planck Institute on 7 June 2002 which was organised by Pablo Salvador and Reinhard Zimmermann. Speakers included:
 
Fernando Gómez (Barcelona) und Juan Antonio Ruiz (Barcelona)
 
Nils Jansen (Regensburg)
 
Bernhard Koch (Innsbruck)
 
Ulrich Magnus (Hamburg)
 
Jesús Pintos (Madrid)
 
Pablo Salvador (Barcelona) und Carlos Gómez (Barcelona)
 
Stephen Swann (Osnabrück)
 
These contributions are published in the online-journal InDret co-edited by Pablo Salvador.