ABSTRACT
Approximation and harmonisation efforts relating to private law (civil law and commercial law) have been and still are subject of many discussions and disputes. Although, it is, doubtlessly, undecided whether Europe, in the present moment, needs at all any sort of a unified legal system, it is obvious that harmonisation in the field of private law-related legislation is unavoidable.
However, the concrete way and method of carrying out legal approximation and harmonisation are uncertain. It could take the form of Council regulation, directive, or could be brought about by means of coordinated national legislation.
Roman law (civil law) served as a foundation for the 16th century Legal Humanism and was a goldmine for the rationalist Natural Law doctrines. In the 19th century, Roman law was moulded in the spirit of legal positivism primarily through the German Science of the Pandects (Pandektenrecht or Pandektenwissenschaft). Finally, Roman law is a predominant material of the great private law codes both in European countries and countries geographically located outside Europe.
The members of the Accademia dei Giusprivatisti Europei, based in Pavia, among whom we can find experts of Roman law, English Common law, and modern codified private law, in their efforts to codify the European law of contracts, view as their mission the creation of a compromise between Roman law, primarily based on codified continental private law, and the contract constructions of the English Common law.
The private law of European countries, no doubt, in different extent and building on different historical traditions, is connected to Roman law (civil law). It is therefore appropriate to take into serious consideration the significant role of Roman law in the comparative analysis of the evolution of European private law, both in relation to the Member States of the European Union (EU) and to those States being—yet—no Member States of the EU.
