'The added value of this book is in both the unusually rich teaching experience which inspires its design - the author has for many years risen to the challenge of making the common law comprehensible to students formed within the civilian tradition - and the remarkable depth of his interdisciplinary and comparative research in the field of legal method and epistemology, which underlies its content.'-Horatia Muir-Watt, Sciences-po, Paris, France --
This comprehensive book provides a comparative overview of legal institutions that intersect with everyday life: contracts, unilateral legal transactions, torts, negotiorum gestio and unjust enrichment. These institutions form the core of the Law of Obligations, which is examined in this book from the perspective of all major legal traditions including Civil, Common, Islamic and Chinese law.
Obligations: New Trajectories in Law provides a critical analysis of the role of obligations in contemporary legal and social practices. As rights have become the preeminent feature of modern political and legal discourse, the work of obligations has been overshadowed. Questioning and correcting this dominant image of our time, this book brings obligations back into view in a way that fits better with the realities of contemporary social life. Following a historical account of the changing place and priorities of obligations in modernity, the book analyses how obligations and practices of obedience are core to understanding how law sustains conditions of inequality. But it also explores the enduring role obligations play in furthering individual and collective well-being, highlighting their significance in practices that prioritize human and environmental needs, common goods, and solidarity. In doing so, it also offers an alternative and cogent assessment of the force, and the potential, of obligations in contemporary societies. This original jurisprudential contribution will appeal to an academic and student readership in law, politics, and the social sciences.
Long a major element of classical studies, the examination of the laws of the ancient Romans has gained momentum in recent years as interdisciplinary work in legal studies has spread. Two resulting issues have arisen, on one hand concerning Roman laws as intellectual achievements and historical artifacts, and on the other about how we should consequently conceptualize Roman law. Drawn from a conference convened by the volume's editor at the American Academy in Rome addressing these concerns and others, this volume investigates in detail the Roman law of obligations—a subset of private law—together with its subordinate fields, contracts and delicts (torts). A centuries-old and highly influential discipline, Roman law has traditionally been studied in the context of law schools, rather than humanities faculties. This book opens a window on that world. Roman law, despite intense interest in the United States and elsewhere in the English-speaking world, remains largely a continental European enterprise in terms of scholarly publications and access to such publications. This volume offers a collection of specialist essays by leading scholars Nikolaus Benke, Cosimo Cascione, Maria Floriana Cursi, Paul du Plessis, Roberto Fiori, Dennis Kehoe, Carla Masi Doria, Ernest Metzger, Federico Procchi, J. Michael Rainer, Salvo Randazzo, and Bernard Stolte, many of whom have not published before in English, as well as opening and concluding chapters by editor Thomas A. J. McGinn.
This book is widely regarded as one of the most remarkable achievements in Roman Law and Comparative Law scholarship this century - a fact attested to by the universal acclaim with which it has been received throughout Europe, America, and beyond. As a work of Roman Law scholarship it fusesthe vast volume of 20th century scholarship on the Roman law of obligations into a clear and very readable (and in many ways original) account of the law. As a work of comparative law it traces the transformation of the Roman law of obligations over the centuries into what is now modern German,English and South African law, presenting the reader with a contrast between these legal systems which is unique both in its scope and its depth. As a whole the book is written with a deep understanding of human nature and of many social, economic, and other forces that determine the face of thelaw.
Principles of the English Law of Obligations provides students with a high-quality overview of this key area of English law. Drawing together updated chapters from the third edition of English Private Law, the subjects covered include contract, tort and equitable wrongs, unjust enrichment, and remedies. Written by a team of acknowledged experts, the chapters give a clear, simple, and accurate overview of the guiding principles and rules of the English law of obligations, including contract and tort, which are compulsory subjects for law degrees and on professional courses. Whether looking for an accessible, conceptual introduction to the area or a handy revision reference, students will find this book invaluable.
This book examines the notion of a law of obligations as a conceptual category in itself; and, in doing this, it presents the foundational material in a context that draws on some comparative and theoretical ideas while, at the same time, emphasising the special characteristics of the common law. The book is specifically designed to act as an introduction to the legal research skills of reasoning and method. It also looks at the foundations of civil liability in a way that emphasises the interrelationship of source materials, problem solving and conceptual analysis and justification.
David Ibbetson exposes the historical layers beneath the modern rules and principles of contract, tort, and unjust enrichment. Small-scale changes caused by lawyers exploiting procedural advantages in their clients' interest are described & analyzed.
Digital Technologies and the Law of Obligations critically examines the emergence of new digital technologies and the challenges they pose to the traditional law of obligations, and discusses the extent to which existing contract and tort law rules and doctrines are equipped to meet these new challenges. This book covers various contract and tort law issues raised by emerging technologies – including distributed ledger technology, blockchain-based smart contracts, and artificial intelligence – as well as by the evolution of the internet into a participative web fuelled by user-generated content, and by the rise of the modern-day collaborative economy facilitated by digital technologies. Chapters address these topics from the perspective of both the common law and the civil law tradition. While mostly focused on the current state of affairs and recent debates and initiatives within the European Union regulatory framework, contributors also discuss the central themes from the perspective of the national law of obligations, examining the adaptability of existing legal doctrines to contemporary challenges, addressing the occasional legislative attempts to deal with the private law aspects of these challenges, and pointing to issues where legislative interventions would be most welcomed. Case studies are drawn from the United States, Singapore, and other parts of the common law world. Digital Technologies and the Law of Obligations will be of interest to legal scholars and researchers in the fields of contract law, tort law, and digital law, as well as to legal practitioners and members of law reform bodies.
