Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law

Favour Relationships

Project period: 2024-2028

Family Laws in Flux

If legal systems prematurely classify assistance as a favour or an act of good will, expectations of legal protection can be disappointed. Conversely, the law can prove to be dysfunctional if it sets the threshold for a contractual relationship (too) low. The aim of this research project is to systematize and analyse the regulatory strategies adopted by legal systems in respect of favours or acts of good will. This also involves the gathering of more detailed empirical knowledge: Just which individuals regularly perform favours for whom – and why? In addition, the aim is to systematize the legal institutions that are employed to recognize, intensify or, conversely, devalue favours. Finally, of interest are the possible connections and interactions between regulatory strategies, extra-legal motivations, social practices, and social (im)balances. To what extent do the legal conceptions of favour relationships reflect social assessments in terms of, for instance, the provision of care or our attitudes towards mental loads? It is these questions that are explored by this interdisciplinary and comparative research project.

Other Interesting Articles

Structural Changes in Guardianship

Family Laws in Flux

As of 1 January 2023, German guardianship law underwent a structural change with the entry into force of reform legislation adopted in 2021. This research project aims to record and analyse the extent and focus of this structural change.

Physical Self-determination: Patients, Children, Care Recipients

Family Laws in Flux Legal concepts regarding personhood privacy and private life

Physical self-determination is understood as a human right. Nevertheless, physical self-determination has never been an equal right enjoyed by all people; rather, it is a right with gradations. To this day, the right of physical self-determination is different for children and recipients of care than it is for ‘normal’ adults.

Sibling Relationships in the Law and the Social Sciences

Extra-legal Perspectives for Legal Research Family Laws in Flux

Although siblings are part of the innermost family circle, family law scholars have thus far paid little attention to their legal position. The present interdisciplinary research project aims to both portray and close this gap.

Family Law and Nationality

Family Laws in Flux

Family law is closely intertwined with the law of nationality. In particular, a person's nationality is linked to his or her line of descent. Legislators and practitioners therefore face the task of harmonizing areas of law that are already subject to their own individual dynamics. In addition, questions of nationality often have an international dimension, such that further complexity is added by the need to coordinate between the various family laws of third countries.

Family Law Under the Conditions of Late Modernity

Extra-legal Perspectives for Legal Research Family Laws in Flux

Is European family law developing in a manner consistent with the sociological predictions of modernity? To answer this question, family law needs to be analysed from a variety of perspectives. First, it is necessary to undertake an overall assessment: In what ways is family law ‘modern’ in a socio-theoretical sense and in what ways is it not?