ABSTRACT
The term ‘law of obligations’ is being used with increasing frequency in England to describe the law of contract, tort and restitution and as a term of convenience it presents few problems. However, as a term of art (or perhaps one should say science) its fundamental connection to the civil law tradition gives rise to a number of problems for anyone who might want to employ it as an analytical tool within the common law tradition. For, in civilian (continental) legal thought, the idea of a law of obligations goes well beyond a mere category. It represents a central part of a coherent system of legal thought which actually makes rational sense only when related to all the other parts of the system.1 Accordingly, unless the system as a whole is understood in all its implications, some of the subtleties of the continental notion of a law of obligations can easily be missed.
