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 collection of essays reflects both the diversity of the group's work and the common thread that runs through it. The core claim here is that the DCFR, despite the Commission's characterization of its proposals as purely technical, cannot escape politics. The intent is to critically identify and evaluate the model of social justice underlying the DCFR.

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.

The Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR) is the result of more than 25 years of academic research on European private law. The final academic version of the DCFR was published in October 2009, and currently the European Commission is undertaking a selection process in order to determine which parts of the DCFR will be included in a 'political' CFR. Against this background, this book presents and critically analyzes the DCFR and situates it in relation to current Belgian law. (Series: Ius Commune Europaeum - Vol. 99)

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'.

In this volume, the Project Group "Restatement of European Insurance Contract Law" presents its Principles of European Insurance Contract Law (PEICL). These principles were submitted to the European Commission as a Draft Common Frame of Reference of European Insurance Contract Law (DCFR Insurance). The volume comprises the PEICL/DCFR Insurance, as well as translations into Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish. It sets out the approach used by the Project Group, how the PEICL/DCFR Insurance relates to the overall DCFR, the participation of the Project Group in the CoPECL (Common Principles of European Contract Law) Network, as well as the general structure and characteristics of the PEICL/DCFR Insurance. The Project Group has also drafted the PEICL/DCFR Insurance as a model for an Optional Instrument of European Insurance Contract Law.