Comparative Property Law

Abstract

The number of studies in comparative property law has recently been growing as a result of efforts to harmonize, or unify, certain aspects of property law in areas crucial for international business transactions. Increasing regional and global economic integration has led to a growing awareness that the divergence of legal rules may lead to inefficiency and raise transactions costs. In Europe the four economic freedoms (free movement of goods, persons, services, and capital), to which now should be added as a fifth freedeom the free movement of data, laid down in the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, have a growing influence on property law. Comparative property law, once considered to be fairly static, is turning into an increasingly dynamic field of law. This is to a considerable degree a consequence of European and global economic integration, and the resulting legal integration. The national property laws, whether belonging to the civilian or the common law tradition, will all be affected by this change.