In this volume, the Study Group and the Acquis Group present the first academic Draft of a Common Frame of Reference (DCFR). The Draft is based in part on a revised version of the Principles of European Contract Law (PECL) and contains Principles, Definitions and Model Rules of European Private Law in an interim outline edition. It covers the books on contracts and other juridical acts, obligations and corresponding rights, certain specific contracts, and non-contractual obligations. One purpose of the text is to provide material for a possible "political" Common Frame of Reference (CFR) which was called for by the European Commission's Action Plan on a More Coherent European Contract Law of January 2003.

This landmark reference work marks the culmination of over 20 years' research into the history and potential future of European private law. An international team of researchers have analyzed the diverse national traditions of private law to compile a codified set of principles of European law for the law of obligations and core aspects of the law of property - known as the Draft Common Frame of Reference. This full edition of the reference work comes complete with all the scholarly apparatus needed to interpret the principles. Full commentary is provided on the text of the 'draft common frame of reference', together with references to and comparative analysis of all the national legal materials used as a basis of the text. The complete work will form a central reference point for all future discussion of the harmonization of European private law, and the interpretation of EU measures in the field. It also represents a major reference work in its own right, offering the fullest resource available on European private law, invaluable for researchers in comparative law and European legal history.

In this volume, the Study Group and the Acquis Group present the first academic Draft of a Common Frame of Reference (DCFR). The Draft is based in part on a revised version of the Principles of European Contract Law (PECL) and contains Principles, Definitions and Model Rules of European Private Law in an interim outline edition. It covers the books on contracts and other juridical acts, obligations and corresponding rights, certain specific contracts, and non-contractual obligations. One purpose of the text is to provide material for a possible "political" Common Frame of Reference (CFR) which was called for by the European Commission's Action Plan on a More Coherent European Contract Law of January 2003.

This book contains a case-based assessment of the Draft Common Frame of Reference carried out by the Common Core Evaluating Group, which gathers a number of well-established and younger scholars coming from Eastern and Western countries of the European Union using the working method of the research project "The Common Core of European Private Law" (www.common-core.org). The aim of the assessment is to test how the Draft Common Frame of Reference could work when applied in different national legal systems. To this end, a number of factual situations, i.e. hypothetical cases, have been drafted by the authors and solved through the application of both national rules and rules of the DCFR. Thereby, similarities and differences in the outcome of the cases have been analysed, together with difficulties - if any - in the application of the "Principles of European Law". The Common Core assessment has been carried out as part of the "Joint Network of European Private Law" Project (CoPECL), financed by the EU Commission.

This text provides a comprehensive guide to the principles of European contract law. They have been drawn up by an independent body of experts from each Member State of the EU, under a project supported by the European Commission and many other organizations. The principles are stated in the form of articles, with a detailed commentary explaining the purpose and operation of each article and its relation to the remainder. Each article also has extensive comparative notes surveying the national laws and other international provisions on the topic.

Non-contractual liability, stemming from damage accountably caused to another, has been the subject of the PETL and DCFR VI European reform initiatives. Gert Brüggemeier, however, proposes alternative reforms which, instead of trying to overcome the differences between civil law (delict) and common law (torts), are restricted to civil liability. The focus is on the grounds of accountability, and stricter forms of liability are at the fore. Quasi-strict enterprise liability is introduced to fill the lacuna between personal fault and forms of strict liability. A commentary is included on recent legislation on civil liability in China, Brazil and Russia to demonstrate how these large countries try to come to grips with the challenges of 'risk society'.

The Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR) is just published. Now the creation of the final Common Frame of Reference (CFR) is one of the most important issues in the field of European Private Law. The volume discusses the key question as to what extent the CFR can and should reflect existing EC Contract Law, and to what extent the DCFR has already incorporated the acquis communautaire. The contributions to this volume try to provide answers to this question by analyzing different controversial areas such as the conclusion and content of the contract (pre-contractual duties, non-discrimination or withdrawal), non-performance, remedies, damages and the relation to International Private Law.