Farewell to Windscheid? Legal Concepts Present and Absent from the Draft CFR

Abstract:     
The Draft CFR includes an Annex (Annex I) containing a set of definitions of legal terms that are used in the black letter rules. Art. I.-1:103 states that the definitions in Annex I "apply for all the purposes of these rules unless the context otherwise requires", and warns that "where a word is defined, other grammatical forms of the word have a corresponding meaning". The purpose of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, I pretend to discuss how much of the concepts elaborated by the jurisprudence of concepts remain in the Draft CFR. The reason is that it is solemnly announced that "[a]n attempt has been made to avoid technical terms from particular legal systems and to try to find, wherever possible, descriptive language which can be readily translated without carrying unwanted luggage with it". Since the conclusion will be that most of the concepts elaborated by the German doctrine are to be found, in one way or another, in the Draft CFR, the second purpose attempts to check how consistent the use of the concepts in its black letter rules is.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 24

Keywords: European private law, DCFR

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