scholarly journals Legal-theoretical characteristics and legal-dogmatic development of German law of general terms and conditions

2021 ◽  
pp. 343-359
Author(s):  
Slobodan Vukadinović

The aim of this paper is to explore the specifics of the Germ an approach in resolving legal issues that are raised regarding general terms and conditions. Applying legal-dogmatic, comparative and legal-historical methods, the paper examines the characteristics and basic directions of development of Germ an legal theory and legislation regarding general terms and conditions. The basics of understanding legal doctrine on the character and legal nature of general terms and conditions are laid out chronologically according to the time of creation and period of dominant influence. The paper highlights the extent to which the legal-theoretic and legal-dogmatic development of German law regarding general terms affected other German-speaking countries, primarily Austria and Switzerland. Legal theoretic development in German law ranged from the strong dominance of normative theory to its strong critics that led to the empowerment of contractual theory. Norm ative legal development is characterized by the principle 'from a special law to the general part of the civil code'. The review of the relevant BGB paragraphs shows that when amending paragraphs of the BGB, the legal concept, which was shaped through German theory and legislation in a coherent whole and in a special law on regulating the general terms and conditions law, was preserved. The provisions of that law were essentially taken into the German Civil Code in 2002 as part of the reform of German contract law. This law not only affected the development of other national legal systems, but also had some impact on the development of consumer law at the European Union level. Namely, some of its provisions were used as the basis for one of the most important directives concerning unfair contractual provisions. The paper also points to the current mechanisms for controlling general terms and conditions through the control of the validity of inclusion (incorporation), the black and grey list of contractual provisions and the general clause.

2019 ◽  
pp. 270-280
Author(s):  
Henk Addink

Good governance is a legal concept and a cornerstone of the modern state and presented in the book as the third cornerstone of a modern stone (alongside the rule of law and democracy). We concluded in relation to the development of the concept of good governance in part I that principles of good governance can only be legal principles when they have been somehow codified legal effect. The good governance principles became more concrete by enumerating six groups of principles (properness, transparency, participation, effectiveness, accountability, and human rights) which are found in many documents of national, regional, and international context. From the legal theory approach on good governance we discussed the character of these principles. In part II we specified the principles of good governance and starting with the principle of properness, which has also been developed under the name of the principle of natural justice. The second, the principle of transparency, is connected to the principle of participation which both have roots in the concept of democracy. The principles of effectiveness and accountability both have a relationship to the institutional structure and functioning. The last principle is the human rights principle which is linked to the rule of law but also to democracy. Several principles of good governance were already developed in regulations and in codes which are the building blocks for the development of the right to good governance. The implementation of good governance and the comparison between countries were explained in Part III. After that, the regional level was discussed—the European Union and the Council of Europe were chosen as models as far as it was comparable. The last chapter was about the implementation on the international level.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 123-131
Author(s):  
Villu Kõve

Estonia is one of the few countries where the abstraction principle (Abstraktionsprinzip) is recognised as the basis for title transfer in property law. Derived from the works of Savigny and from Germany’s strong land-register system, it is also among the basic principles of property law in Germany (the foundations of the BGB). In most countries, however, transfer of title is causal. The article describes how Estonia adopted and adapted German legal doctrine and thinking in this important field of law. This path was a long one, even though Estonian law has deep connections to German traditions. Before 1940, Estonia’s most important legal act was the Baltic Private Law Act, wherein the abstraction principle clearly was not recognised and the causal transfer of title formed the grounds in property law. In the Soviet era, though property law was given far less emphasis, the causal approach still served as its basis. When Estonia became independent, in the early 1990s, a new system of property law was urgently needed for purposes of land reform and for implementing the land-register system. German support for preparing the new Law of Property Act along the lines of German law was accepted, and the new law entered into force in 1993. Remarkably, at the beginning of this process it was not certain whether the abstraction principle would get implemented, but it became accepted through almost a decade of case law, and the new laws were later amended such that the principle was – unlike in German law – clearly formulated (in the General Part of the Civil Code). The abstraction principle has been an important part of Estonian property law and legal thinking ever since, firmly established both in legal theory and in case law. This process demonstrates well how a legal transplant from a given legal system can work in another.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Böhle

The book examines the legal relationships in international loan syndicates based on the model contracts developed by the Loan Market Association (LMA). German law qualifies loan syndicates as partnerships. This qualification is questioned as it conforms neither to the expectations nor to the needs of the parties involved. With a constant comparative law approach (primarily England and France), the work brings together legal doctrine, legal theory and economics in order to develop practical solutions with regard to syndicate voting and duties of information in an LMA loan syndicate as well as the interpretation and judicial review of an LMA syndicate agreement.


Author(s):  
W. Bradley Wendel

This chapter assesses fiduciary law within the framework of private law theory. Fiduciary law and private law theory seem made for one another. Fiduciary law is centrally focused on the morally attractive end of maintaining relationships of trust and confidence among individuals. But it does so by bracketing highly abstract normative theory in favor of well-developed legal constructs such as duties of loyalty and care. It is comfortable with pluralism, complexity, and context-specificity. Moreover, it represents a rational structure that is not wholly dependent on external criteria yet does not aspire to strict independence from empirical considerations and normative values. Fiduciary law nevertheless poses some challenges for private law theory. As an evolving field, it may grow in unanticipated directions and risk the loss of its former coherence. The possibility of this loss of a coherent organizing structure has motivated considerable recent work in the theory of fiduciary law, and also in legal theory more generally, as scholars seek to understand how normative pluralism can coexist with stable, rational legal doctrine.


2021 ◽  
pp. 90-122
Author(s):  
Neil Walker

The chapter’s overview of the constitutional theory and general legal theory of the EU reflects two different manifestations of the still limited cultivation of theory within EU law. The discussion of the relatively crowded field of EU constitutional theory, both explanatory and normative, reveals the abiding importance of the relationship of different positions (affirmative and critical) to the received state tradition of constitutional practice and theory as a distinguishing mark and point of opposition. The discussion of the wider contribution of legal theory to the study of EU legal doctrine more generally is more developmental. While acknowledging work that is explicit and systematic in its theorization, it is mainly concerned with how this more sparsely populated intellectual landscape might be filled by teasing out the fuller theoretical significance of the quite different background suppositions—positivist, idealist, culturalist, and pragmatic—of how law works that ground EU legal studies.


2019 ◽  

This edited volume includes the lectures held at the seventh German-Taiwanese colloquium in Goettingen. It focused on comparative law with respect to the link between law itself, legal doctrine and language. This topic relates to a broader German academic debate about the function and value of legal doctrine. While criticised by German scholars, the German legal doctrine is, interestingly enough, what makes German law relevant for comparison and reception by foreign legal systems. The volume also discusses the challenges of language knowledge and adequate translation, which especially concerns a country like Taiwan, which largely incorporated foreign law into their legal system. It has become an increasingly important topic in the European Union as well. Altogether, the edited volume includes a well-balanced mixture of general dogmatic contributions and exemplary case studies. With contributions by Björn Ahl, Ai-er Chen, Chien-Liang Lee, Chun-Tao Lee, Ming-Hsin Lin, José Martínez, Johannes Reich, Dietmar von der Pfordten, Thorsten Ingo Schmidt, Frank Schorkopf, Christian Starck, Hui-Chieh Su, Tzu-Hui Yang


Author(s):  
Sergei Nikolaevich Vinokurov

The subject of this research is the effect of international legal representations of good faith reflected in the EU law upon English contract law pertaining to apparent borrowing and interpretation of this doctrine during Britain’s membership of the European Union. The author reviews the content of representations of good faith in English contract law, as well as probable changes of these views under the influence of EU law. The author determines the similarities and differences in interpretation of this concept in English common law during Britain’s membership of the European Union. A number of European directives that regulate international public relations and international private relations in the European Union contain the requirement of fair business practice and compliance with the requirements of good faith. Although, these acts had supremacy over British national legislation, which left a mark on English legal doctrine. The main conclusions consist in the establishment of versatile nature of the international legal concept of good faith of the EU law and the effect of representations of this concept upon the views of British legal experts in the field of English contract law. The article presents the contrary viewpoints on the content of requirements of good faith in the EU law and their perception by English contract law on the practical and doctrinal levels. The author also reveals certain common features and fundamental differences in interpretation of good faith in the EU law based on the EU normative acts and decisions of the European Court of Justice, as well as in the British landmark decisions and normative acts that regulate contractual relations in England and Wales.


Global Jurist ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rocco Alessio Albanese

Abstract This paper intends to discuss some major European legal issues by building on the critique of a certain narrow relevance of human basic needs, according to traditional Western legal conceptions of the subject as well as of the public-private divide. In particular it aims at verifying the potentiality of consumer law for rethinking the right to housing, within recent trends of European Private Law, by adopting a remedial approach. For this reason the paper analyzes three well-known cases decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) – namely Aziz, Sanchez Morcillo and Kušionová – as examples of this meaningful trend. Through the combination of the fairness test over contractual terms with the criteria of effectiveness and proportionality, a broader protection of right to housing is recognised even in horizontal private relationships. Art. 7 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (CFREU) could represent the constitutional reference for this new perspective. The paper also intends to show how the relevance of the basic need for housing is traced to debtor's families. CJEU's interpretative itinerary seems to start from a fairness test about contractual terms, but eventually comes to give protection to subjective situations that are even out of the domain of the contract.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-131
Author(s):  
Anthony Carty

Abstract Customary international law as a source of general law is given a primary place in Article 38 of the ICJ Statute. However, it is historically a concept created by legal doctrine. The very idea of custom supposes legal persons are natural persons living in a dynamic, evolving community. This was the assumption of the historical school of law in the 19th century when the concept of custom was developed. Now the dominant notion of legal personality is the State as an impersonal corporation and international legal theory (Brierly and D’Amato) can see well that the death of the historical school of law has to mean the death of the concept of custom. What should replace it? Two steps need to be taken in sequence. Firstly, following the Swedish realist philosopher Haegerstrom, we have to ascertain the precise constellations of the conflictual attitudes the populations of States have to the patterns of normativity which they project onto international society. Secondly, we should follow the virtue ethics jurisprudence of Paul Ricoeur and others, who develop a theory of critical legal doctrinal judgement, along the classical lines of Aristotle and Confucius, to challenge and sort out the prejudices of peoples into some reasonable shape, whereby these can be encouraged to understand and respect one another. Then one will not have to endure so many silly interpretations of international law such as the one declaring that there are only rocks in the South China Sea and not islands. Such interpretations have nothing to do with the supposedly ordinary legal language analysis of a convention and the State practice surrounding it. They have to do entirely with a continued lack of respect by Western jurists for non-Western societies and nations.


Author(s):  
Anne C. Dailey

This chapter describes the contribution contemporary psychoanalysis has to make in three specific areas: legal theory, legal doctrine, and adjudication in the courtroom. Psychoanalysis improves the law’s theoretical foundations by modifying its foundational presumption of rationality. Psychoanalysis also helps to reform legal doctrine by identifying those particular subject matter areas, primarily family law and criminal law, where the law’s presumption of rationality leads to unjust legal rules. With domestic violence as its example, this chapter shows how psychoanalysis offers a body of practical knowledge that humanizes the law by bringing legal rules into line with actual, everyday lived experience. And finally, psychoanalysis reveals the deep tension between the law’s focus on individual moral responsibility for behavior and the law’s objective methods of proof in the courtroom. Psychoanalytic insights into the art of proving what really happened in a case can move law in the direction of a more empathic and forgiving model of judging. Overall, the psychoanalytic study of the law unveils the damaging consequences of the law’s rationalist assumptions about who we are as human beings, and offers an alternative, humanistic perspective in line with law’s foundational ideals of individual freedom and systemic justice.


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