I. HISTORICAL SCHOLARSHIP AND THE NEW IU$ COMMUNE

It is remarkable that Max Kaser, who himself devoted all his energies to the reconstruction of Roman private law as it had prevailed in antiquity, emphasized the necessity of a new synthesis between legal history and legal system, and that he also saw the need for establishing an intellectual link between legal history and comparative law.^[314] What Kaser postulated half a century ago is even more important today.

⁴On the application in Germany, see the regular contributions by Ulrich Magnus, (1993) 1 ZEuP 79 if.; (1995) 3 ZEuP 202 (f.; (1997) 5 ZEuP 823 ff.;'(1999) 7 ZEuP 642 ff. The Convention has been adopted by close to 50 states, among them ten member states of the European Union. Concerning Great Britain, see the comments by Barry Nicholas, The United Kingdom and the Vienna Sales Convention: Another Case of Splendid Isolation? (1993).

’ See, e.g., Martin Gebauer, Grundfragen der Europäisierung des Privatrechts (1998); Jan Smits, Enro/ires Privaatrecht in wording (1999); and the contributions in Nicold Lipari (ed.), Diritto prionfo europeo (1997); Thomas G. Watkin (ed.), The Euro· peanisation of Laie (1998) (also covering other areas of the law); Arthur Hartkamp and Martijn Hesselink et al. (eds.), Towards a European Civil Code (2nd edn., 1998); Peter-Christian Müller-Graff (ed.), Gemeinsames Privatrecht in der EuropYischeit Gemeinschaft (2nd edn., 1999); on contract law, see Jürgen Basedow, 'The Renascence of Uniform Law: European Contract Law and its Components', (1998) 18 Legal Studies 121 ff.

⁶ Cf. the programme sketched by Hein Kotz, 'Gemeineuropäisches Zivilrecht', in Festschrift für Konrad Zweigert (1981), 498, and now implemented in Hein Kotz, Europäisches Vertragsrecht, vol. i (1996) (English translation by Tony Weir 119971; Christian von Bar, Gemeineuropäisches Deliklsrecht, vol. i (1996) (an English transla­tion appeared in 1998), vol. ii (1999) (an English translation is in preparation); Filippo Ranieri, Europäisches Obligat kmenrecht (1999).

’ Ole Lando and Hugh Beale (eds.), Principles of European Contract Law (2000) (incorporating a previously published part I 11995]; for comment, see Reinhard Zimmermann, 'Konturen eines Europäischen Privatrechts', 1995 /Z 477 ff.; Hugh Beale, The Principles of European Contract Law and Harmonisation of the Law of Contract', in Festskift til Ole Lindo (1997), 21 ff.; Ralf Michaels, 'Privatau­tonomie und Privatkodifikation', (1998) 62 RabelsZ 580 ff. Cf. also the contribu­tions in Hans-Leo Weyers (ed.), Europäisches Verlagsrecht (1997), and Jürgen Basedow (ed.) Europäische Vertragsrechlsi'creinheitlichung und deutsches Recht (2000).

* See now Jaap Spier and Olav A. Haazen, Hie European Group on Tort Law ("Tilburg Group") and the European Principles of Tort Law', (1999) 7 ZEuP 469 ff.

or trust law.⁹ We are living in an age of post-positivism.¹⁰ The narrowness, but also the security, of a national codifi­cation (or common law) is increasingly left behind and we are moving towards a new ius commune.

This new ins commune will have to be built around shared values and generally recognized legal methods¹¹ as well as common principles¹² and guiding maxims, and it will have to be shaped by judges, legislators, and professors,¹³ acting in cooperation with each other. But since, in the words of Savigny, there is no autonomous human existence entirely isolated from the past, we cannot freely fashion our own existence, including our laws: we always, and necessarily, do it 'in indissoluble community with the entire past';¹⁴ and unless we want unconsciously to be governed by the past¹⁵ we should explore it in order to understand how we got to where we are. Historical scholarship (which will itself have to abandon its focus on national legal history¹⁶) may thus

Hitherto, the following volumes have appeared: Jaap Spier (cd.), The Limits of Liability (1996); idem (ed.), The Limits of Expanding Liability (1998); Helmut Koziol (ed.), Unification of Tort Law: Wrongfttlness (1998); for general background, see Ulrich Magnus, 'Elemente eines europäischen Deliktsrechts', (1998) 6 ZEuP 602 ff. with further references.

⁹ See D. J. Hayton, S. C. J.J. Kortmann and 11. L E. Verhagen (eds.), Principles· of European Trust Uno (1999); cf. also (1999) 7 ZEiiP 745 ff.

¹⁰ See Jürgen Basedow, 'Rechtssicherheit im europäischen Wirtschaftsrecht: Ein allgemeiner Rechtsgrundsatz im Lichte der wettbewerbsrechtlichen Recht­sprechung’, (1996) 4 ZEuP 570 ff.; Eugen Bucher, 'Recht—Geschichtlich keit— Europa', in Bruno Schmidlin (ed.), Vers un droit print europ&n common? Skizzen zum gemeineuroptäschen Privatrecht (1994), 23.

¹¹ See, most recently, Jürgen Basedow, 'Anforderungen an eine europäische Zivilrechtsdogmatik', in Reinhard Zimmermann, Rolf Knütel and Jens Peter Meincke (eds.), Rechfsgeschichle und Privntrechtsdogmatik (2000), 79 ff.

¹² See Reiner Schulze, 'Allgemeine Rechtsgrundsätze und europäisches Privat­recht', (1993) 1 ZEuP 442 ff.

¹³ They have traditionally been responsible for the development of European private law; see the classic study by R. C. van Caenegem, fudges, Legislators and Professors (1987); idem, A Historical introduction to Private Law (1988), 170 ff.

¹⁴ 'Ueber den Zweck dieser Zeitschrift', (1815) 1 Zeitschrift für geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft 1 ff. For a critical exploration of Savign/s views, see the litera­ture quoted supra p. 12 (n. 42).

¹⁵ Friedrich Carl von Savigny, System des heutigen romischen Rcr/ifs (1840), vol. i, preface, pp. xv f.

¹⁶ Cf. also Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western enable us to take stock of our present legal condition. It may help us to map out, and to become aware of, the common ground still existing between our national legal systems as a result of a common tradition, of independent but parallel developments, and of instances of intellectual stimulation or the reception of legal rules or concepts. At the same time, it will be able to explain discrepancies on the level of specific result, general approach, and doctrinal nuance.¹⁷ It is this kind of comprehension that paves the way for rational criticism and organic development of the law.¹⁸ The past, of course, does not justify itself; nor does it necessarily contain the solutions for present-day prob­lems. ^1Q But an understanding of the past is a first and essential prerequisite for devising the most appropriate solutions.²⁰ This is as true within a given national legal system as it is for the formation of a European law. And just as legal history informs the development of private law doctrine in the one case, so it constitutes the basis for comparative scholarship in the other.²¹ European private law requires a combination of comparative and historical scholarship.

Legal Tradition (1983), 17: 'And in the late twentieth century we still suffer from the nationalist historiography that originated in the nineteenth century and that supported the disintegration of a common Western legal heritage.... It was simply assumed that history meant national history*; Reiner Schulze, 'Vorn lus commune bis zum Gemeinschaftsrecht: Das Forschungsfeld der europäischen Rechtsgeschichte', in idem (ed.), Europäische Rechts· und Verfassungsgeschichte: Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der Forschung (1991), 3 ff.

¹⁷ The point has been emphasized already in (1996) 112 I.QR 596 ff.

¹⁸ On 'organic' development (or growth) as a characteristic of the European legal tradition see (apart, of course, from Savigny) Berman (n. 16) 1 ff.

¹⁹ Alfred Cockrell. 'Studying Legal History in South Africa: The Lesson of Lot's Wife', (1997) 5 ZEuP 438.

²⁰ See, e.g., the moving statement (in the nature of a confession) by W. A. Wilson, The Importance of Analysis', in Comparative and Historical Essays in Scots law: A Tribute to Professor Sir Thomas Smith Q.C. (1992), 171.

²¹ For clear statements to that effect, see Hein Kolz, 'Was erwartet die Rechtsvergleichung von der Rechtsgeschichte?’, 1992 /Z 20 ff.; Axel Flessner, 'Die Rechtsvergleichung als Kundin der Rechtsgeschichte', (1999) 7 ZEuP 513 ff.