Binnenmarkt, Privatrecht und europäische Identität

Nils Jansen analyzes the motives of the present attempts to unify and codify the European law of obligations and property. He ascertains that these attempts are based partly on the search for a common juridical identity in Europe, and questions whether there is in fact a common European law based on a common understanding and shared fundamental principles. The only positive answer to this applies to the law of contracts, since large sections of the law of torts, of restitution and of property were formed only during the last two centuries when the legal systems of the different European nations developed largely independently of each other. Thus any attempt to integrate European private law must develop an adequate methodology for their project. In the last part of this work, the author provides outlines for an approach to this.