The DCFR, the Avant-projet Catala and French Legal Scholars: A Story of Cat and Mouse?

Abstract

In 2005 a French working group published an Avant-projet de réforme du droit des obligations et de la prescription (“Avant-projet Catala”).1 At the end of 2007 a Draft Common Frame of Reference (“DCFR”) was submitted to the European Commission by the Study Group on a European Civil Code and the Research Group on EC Private Law (Acquis Group).2 How much ink should we spill over such academic proposals for legislative reform, especially if there are misgivings as to substance, content and legitimacy and doubts as to the prospects for implementation? In an attempt to learn from these projects this paper aims to evaluate and reflect on the position of legal scholars on the political legal scene, and to compare the content of some selected provisions. The overall objective is to investigate how the Avant-projet Catala, a proposal to reform the French Civil Code, and the DCFR, a proposal which looks very much like a European Civil Code, fit together: do these projects have different goals or are they in competition with one another? More particularly, this paper investigates whether these French3 and European initiatives are conducive to creating a more European private law or, on the contrary, whether they reinforce legal nationalism.