AustLII Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback

Edited Legal Collections Data

You are here:  AustLII >> Databases >> Edited Legal Collections Data >> 2019 >> [2019] ELECD 20

Database Search | Name Search | Recent Articles | Noteup | LawCite | Help

Swain, Warren --- "The Common law and the Code civil: the curious case of the law of contract" [2019] ELECD 20; in Moréteau, Olivier; Masferrer, Aniceto; Modéer, A. Kjell (eds), "Comparative Legal History" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 379

Book Title: Comparative Legal History

Editor(s): Moréteau, Olivier; Masferrer, Aniceto; Modéer, A. Kjell

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781781955215

Section: Chapter 14

Section Title: The Common law and the Code civil: the curious case of the law of contract

Author(s): Swain, Warren

Number of pages: 21

Abstract/Description:

The relationship between French law, as contained in the Code civil, and English law, as it had developed through the common law, was rather less antagonistic than one might expect. The law of contract in both France and England underwent significant change during the 19th century. Neither nation’s contract law was entirely re-written. The process was, in part at least, as much an end point as it was a new beginning. Jurists had long seen value in ordering and rationalising the law around principles. The fashion for intellectual order would contribute towards the creation of a code in France. In England it was no less significant even if the outcomes were different. As far as the substantive law was concerned there are even instances in which French contract law influenced developments in England. Plenty of differences still remained of course. It is, however, probably not going too far to say, that French and English contract law in the 19th century was closer in some key respects than at any time before or since.


AustLII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback
URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ELECD/2019/20.html