The European Civil Code: The Way Forward

Description

Hugh Collins argues that the European Union should develop a civil code to provide uniform rules for contracts, property rights and protection against civil wrongs, thus drawing together the differing national traditions with respect to the detailed regulation of civil society. The benefits of such a code would lie not so much in facilitating cross border trade, but in establishing foundations for a denser network of transnational relations of civil society, which in turn would help to overcome the present popular resistance to effective and functional political institutions at a European level. These principled foundations for a more inclusive and less balkanised civil society in Europe also provide elements of a required European social model that offers necessary safeguards for consumers, workers and disadvantaged groups against the pressures of market forces in an increasingly global economic system.

Hugh Collins is the Professor of English Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Fellow of the British Academy.

'... a courageous and provocative enterprise for a common lawyer! ... the multitude of constructive and innovative ideas suggested by Collins might help design a legal and institutional compromise capable of overcoming the current political deadlock of the European codification process - not a small achievement for a single book!' The European Law Review