Among the most significant legal developments of our time is the emergence of a European private law. The European Union enacts directives that profoundly affect the practice, teaching and study of core areas of ‘classical’ private law. Internationally, commissions have formulated principles of European trusts, contract and commercial law. Furthermore, uniform private law can be found in a number of international conventions.
This second edition gathers together fundamental texts from these three sources into one convenient volume. Its emphasis is on general civil and commercial law, particularly on the obligations and property aspects of these.
This second edition is a sister volume to the original German edition, now in its 5th edition.
The Editors would like to thank Lucy Olley and Daniela Esposito, both of Warwick University, for their help in gathering and preparing the material for this edition.
The European Commission's proposed Directives, one on the supply of digital content to consumers and the other on online sales of goods to consumers, have two aims: to give fuller protection to consumers who buy digital content (in many Member States, consumers' rights are far from clear) or buy goods online, and to encourage more traders to supply consumers in other Member States. The Commission continues to be concerned that because when a trader deals with a consumer in the consumer's country of habitual residence or directs its activities towards that country, the consumer is protected by that country's law, traders will be deterred by differences between the laws of the Member States. The Commission's initial idea was to replace the current minimum harmonisation directives by a broad full harmonisation directive. When that ran into opposition from Member States, the Commission tried the "optional Instrument" approach, the proposed Common European Sales Law. After the CESL also failed, the Commission is now seeking full harmonisation on a limited range of issues. The two proposals contain useful new provisions but have some serious shortcomings. Both the European Parliament Committees and the Council Working Group seem to welcome the proposal on digital content, provided that some of the shortcomings are dealt with. The proposal on online sales is more controversial and has not yet been considered in detail by the Council. The paper concludes by querying whether limited full harmonisation of only B2C contracts is the best way to deal with problems caused by differences between the laws.
Resumen
Las directivas propuestas por la Comisión Europea, una sobre suministro de contenidos digitales a los consumidores y la otra sobre la compraventa de artículos en línea a los consumidores, plantean dos objetivos: ofrecer una protección más completa a los consumidores que adquieren contenidos digitales (en muchos de los Estados miembros, los derechos de los consumidores distan mucho de quedar claros) o que adquieren artículos en línea, y fomentar que más empresas suministren productos a los consumidores de otros Estados miembros. A la Comisión sigue preocupándole que, debido a que si una empresa trata con un consumidor en el país de residencia habitual de ese consumidor o dirige sus actividades hacia ese país, el consumidor está protegido por las leyes de su país, a las empresas las disuada el hecho de encontrar diferencias entre las legislaciones de los distintos Estados miembro. La idea inicial de la Comisión era sustituir las actuales directivas de armonización mínima por una directiva amplia de armonización total. Al encontrarse con la oposición de los Estados miembros, la
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.