Eric Descheemaeker – författare

The Roman Law of Obligations presents a series of lectures delivered by the late Peter Birks as an introductory course in Roman law. Discovered in complete manuscript form following his death, the lectures are published here for the first time.The lectures present a clear conceptual map of the Roman law of obligations, guiding readers through the institutional structure of contract, delict, quasi-contract, and quasi-delict. They introduce readers to the terminology needed to understand the foundations of Roman law, and the conceptual framework of the law of obligations that left an enduring legacy on European private law.The lectures offer an invaluable introduction to Roman private law for those coming to the subject for the first time. They will also make stimulating reading for academics and lawyers interested in Roman law, European legal history, and the lasting influence of Roman law on modern private law.

The common law, despite procedural divisions, has only ever had one class of civil wrongs. The civilians, by contrast, have typically split their law of wrongs in two, one group being called delicts and the other quasi-delicts. Yet this division, which originated in Roman law, remains mysterious: it is clear neither where the line was drawn nor why a separation was made along this line. This book does two things. In the first two parts, it investigates the origins of the division and its development in a modern civilian jurisdiction, France. What is argued for is that the Roman dichotomy was originally one between fault (culpa)-based and situational liability, which was prompted by a historical contraction of the Roman concept of a wrong (delictum). French law, building on medieval interpretations of the division, redrew the line one level higher, between deliberate and negligent wrongdoing. By doing so, it involved itself in severe taxonomical difficulties, which the book explores.The third part of the work concerns itself with the significance of the civilian division of wrongs according to degrees of blameworthiness (dolus, culpa, casus) for the common law. A provocative thesis is developed, in effect, that there is a strong case for the adoption of a similar trichotomy as the first-level division of the English law of civil wrongs. From its formulary age, English law has inherited an unstable taxonomy where wrongs intersect. The existence of these mismatched categories continues to cause significant difficulties, which a realignment of causes of action along the above lines could rectify.

Provides key entry points into the broad subject of possession in a comparative perspective. Although possession is a topic which has been researched for centuries, there is a surprising dearth of comparative materials and also very little available in English about the law of non-Anglophone jurisdictions. Leaving aside the question on what possession is, a question that has caused a considerable amount of ink to be spilled for centuries, this analysis concerns itself with the law’s response to ‘possession’. The volume comprises contributions from some very distinguished scholars from the civilian tradition (Germany, Italy) as well as the common law (England) and mixed legal systems (Quebec, Scotland, South Africa). It is the first attempt to look in a coherent fashion at the topic of possession from a comparative and historical perspective.