Modern Private Law Research Articles

Public and Private Interests in Modern Private Law in Russia: unity in diversity

The article analyzes the problem of understanding public and private interests at the present stage of development of public relations regulated in Russia by private law. Based on the conducted research, the author concludes that the opposition of public interest to private is unreasonable, since its carrier is a specific individual. Public and private interest in private law are a single whole in cases of high public importance, characteristic of relations related to the provision of actions at their discretion, especially in connection with the establishment of rights to things, the results of intellectual activity, the protection of personal non-property rights. At the same time, one should not underestimate the importance of private interest, the legal form of which is necessary to concretize its provision in a strictly defined sphere of public relations related to meeting the needs of one person by the actions of another, in particular, in contractual, as well as legal relations related to participation in civil law communities, including corporate ones. Such an approach to the correlation of private and public interests makes it possible to expand and clarify their understanding, highlighting civil law values and values of civil law communities, general and special civil law interests, as well as general and special interests of civil law communities, the interests of individual individuals.

正當性與可變性

The vicious, heinous and jarring epidemic of the 21st century (Covid-19) is raging -in an unruly manner - across the world. On the heels of this both unforeseen and hideous sanitary situation, mankind is met with a bevy of challenges and lessons which are in dire need of being withdrawn from a legal standpoint.
 Against this background, this paper seeks to pinpoint the sizable impact that the ongoing epidemic has had on consumer contracts against the backdrop of legitimacy and variability of the legal system in the remit of modern private law. This paper thus endeavours to gauge the extent to which the current epidemic stands as a force majeure in the remit of consumer contracts or a principle of change of circumstances that disregards the principle of pacta sunt servanda coupled with its impact on both the deposits and the refunds of the fees paid by the consumer.
 With this context in place, this article parses the impact (or lack thereof) of Covid-19 on the purview of private law system alongside its impact on the effectiveness of ongoing consumer contracts.

Libertas contractus. Paolo Comitoli SJ (1545–1626) on freedom of contract in light of early modern private law

The paper presents the results of research devoted to the concept of freedom of contract in the writings of an early modern Italian Jesuit, Paolo Comitoli. He claimed that freedom of contract was one of the attributes of contracts and it was essential for the consent of parties entering into a contract. He distinguished between three types of this freedom. Freedom of will was a prerequisite in case of any and all human actions including contracts. Voluntariness was tantamount to a requirement for the will of the parties, which led to the consent to the contract, and it was the result of a voluntary decision which was not disturbed by any vices. Freedom of ownership enabled the parties to conduct a transfer of the object of contract in its broadly understood sense. Comitoli’s concept of contractual freedom was an expression of his belief that voluntary consent of the wills of the parties as the foundation of contractual consent was the basis and the main cause of a contract.

Информационно-пространственная конвертация, коммерческий информационный оборот – развитие рынка данных и его контроль локализацией

Relevance. Recently, at the level of international law and the legislation of individual states, an active search has been conducted for new approaches to protecting the rights and freedoms of users in information networks, which is a vulnerable participant in the information turnover market. In the Russian civil doctrine, the issue of organizing legal protection of a user whose data, including personal data, is processed by commercial organizations for the purpose of further profit-making is insufficiently developed. The lack of modern conceptual approaches does not allow us to qualitatively change the current legislation and harmonize the scope of rights of all participants in the commercial circulation of information. The purpose of the work is to study the commercial turnover of information in information networks, its economic value and methods of legal control of information processing. Objectives: to analyze the features and differences of information and telecommunications technologies; to as-sess the economic feasibility of information turnover; to form proposals for changing the current legislation in the field of legal regulation of information markets. Methodology. In the process of working on the research, general scientific research methods and methods in-herent in modern private law science were used. We are talking about the use of methods of analysis and synthesis of information, data interpretation. The analysis of the current legislation in the field of commercial turnover of information is made. Results. The legal differences between information and telecommunications technologies provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation are determined. The economic significance of information turnover in the information markets is determined. The legal problem of information spatial conversion and its legal control is indicated. Conclusion. The conducted research provides the basis for an unambiguous conclusion about the lack of nec-essary legal mechanisms for controlling the turnover of information and insufficient protection of the rights of the owners of the processed information. On the need to implement the legal modernization of the institute of "data localization".

Punishment in Private Law: No Such Thing (Any More)

This chapter asks whether there is still any such thing as punishment in private law any more. In doing so, it examines the meaning(s) and purposes of the idea of punishment; and the history, meaning and purposes of private law. It concludes that punishment, properly understood as a judicial act and aim in its own right (and not just as an effect of other judicial acts), should be understood narrowly as an act of retributive justice and reprisal. Whilst this idea did indeed feature in the history of private actions, it is not in use in this sense in modern private law any more, where the aims of 'punitive' or 'exemplary' damages are identifiably different. Whilst punishment (for better or worse) remains one aim of sentencing in the modern criminal law, it is not an aim that is instantiated in private law.

Making the Multiple:

The essay argues for the compatibility between private law and the commons. In order to do so, it proposes an archeology of modern private law, which traces both the emergence of what will be called “modern topology” and the historical transformation of civil law into what we still know as private law. Private law is considered to be a product of modern legal theory which is radically tied with public law. The two are meant to have the very same logical form—individuality—which was the premise for the social relation of capital to be established. The pivot of this legal maneuver—which ended up with the exclusion of the commons from the realm of both private and public law—was the theory of subjective rights. To dismantle this construction, the essay proposes a critique of subjective rights as well as a trans-subjective approach to private law.

Punitive Damages: Reorienting the Debate in Civil Law Systems

Abstract Scholarly debates in a number of Latin American and European countries have recently focused on the legal institution of punitive damages. These debates have been primarily influenced by the Anglo-American experience with the institution. The dominance of an outcome-driven, interpretive approach to an inherently complex and contradictory practice in the prevailing Anglo-American scholarship on punitive damages, however, has seriously affected and likely distorted the comparative and normative scholarly debates over the introduction of the institution in countries that follow the civil law tradition. In this article, I argue that, in order to participate more meaningfully in the punitive damages debate, civil law scholars should, on one hand, refrain from attempts to improve the understanding of the Anglo-American practice while offering country-specific assessments of the authors’ own legal system’s (in)compatibilities with the institution; and, on the other hand, actively engage in thorough discussions regarding the fundamental theoretical grounding of the place of punishment in modern private law. The novelty of this scholarly approach will require private law scholars to acknowledge both the punitive elements currently hidden yet nonetheless patent in domestic private law practices of awarding damages and the constraining effect of the pervasively proclaimed yet easily disputable clear-cut line between private and public law.

Догматичний напрям методології формування сучасної національної доктрини приватного права

Юридична методологія відіграє важливу роль у забезпеченні комплексного дослідження цивільно-правової матерії, адже застосування усього доступного арсеналу апробованих у юриспруденції методів забезпечує найбільш якісне вивчення кожного окремого напряму цивілістичної проблематики. Зі свого боку врахування на законодавчому рівні обґрунтованих цивілістикою висновків та рекомендацій уможливлює подальше вдосконалення відповідних сегментів вітчизняного механізму цивільно-правового регулювання. Незважаючи на достатньо повно рoзрoблeну мeтoдику тлумачeння нoрмативнo-правoвих актiв на рiвнi iнструмeнтальнoї тeoрiї права i наявнiсть наукoвих праць, присвячeних спoсoбам тлумачeння дoгoвoрiв, мeханiзм виявлeння глибинної сутності більшості інших актів саморегулювання як рiзнoвидiв приватнoправoвих тeкстiв дoстатньою мірою у цивілістиці нe рoзрoблeний. Залишається також малoдoслiджeним питання щoдo мoжливoстi застoсування єдинoї стандартнoї сукупнoстi мeтoдiв пiзнання явищ цивiльнo-правoвoї рeальнoстi нeзалeжнo вiд спeцифiки oб’єкта дoслiджeння. Метою статті є спроба обґрунтування методологічної доцільності застосування герменевтики як одного з основних методів догматичного напряму наукових досліджень у цивілістичній науці. Показано, що в ідеалі сучасні дослідження у цивілістиці повинні ґрунтуватися на трьох можливих рівнях наукового пізнання: дoгматичнoму, сoцioлoгiчнoму та аксioлoгiчнoму. Продемонстровано, що догматичний рівень полягає у дослідженні норм позитивного права, що містяться в актах цивільного законодавства України, приписів, які становлять зміст правових звичаїв й інших джерел цивільного права, а також положень договорів, статутів, регламентів та інших внутрішніх документів юридичних осіб. Їх всебічне вивчення здійснюється за допомогою методів правової герменевтики з урахуванням актуальних потреб у регулюванні та волі, вираженої у правовій нормі. Обґрунтовується, що застосування герменевтичного підходу до дослідження цивільно-правової реальності дає змогу виявити системні проблеми в організації правової роботи окремих суб’єктів цивільних правовідносин, опрацювати пропозиції щодо її вдосконалення та окреслити шляхи досягнення поставлених завдань більш ефективними прийомами. Продемонстровано, що евристичний потенціал цього методу для здійснення досліджень у цивілістиці полягає в отриманні відомостей про смисл тексту, закладений у нього автором, і про те, для чого цей текст може бути використаний. У науковому дослідженні такий результат повинен бути проміжним, давати підставу для роздумів вченого про правові явища і служити приводом для виявлення проб лем в адекватності викладу фактичних обставин.

'Faithful Execution' and Article II

Article II of the U.S. Constitution twice imposes a duty of “faithful execution” on the President, who must “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” and take an oath or affirmation to “faithfully execute the Office of President.” These clauses are cited often, but their background and original meaning have never been fully explored. Courts, the executive branch, and many scholars rely on one or both clauses as support for expansive views of presidential power, for example, to go beyond standing law to defend the nation in emergencies; to withhold documents from Congress or the courts; or to refuse to fully execute statutes on grounds of unconstitutionality or for policy reasons. This Article is the first to explore the textual roots of these clauses from the time of Magna Carta and medieval England, through colonial America, and up to the original meaning in the Philadelphia Convention and ratification debates. We find that the language of “faithful execution” was for centuries before 1787 very commonly associated with the performance of public and private offices—especially those in which the officer had some control over the public fisc. “Faithful execution” language applied not only to senior government officials but also to a vast number of more ministerial officers, too. We contend that it imposed three core requirements on officeholders: (1) diligent, careful, good faith, and impartial execution of law or office; (2) a duty not to misuse an office’s funds and or take unauthorized profits; and (3) a duty not to act ultra vires, beyond the scope of one’s office. These three duties of fidelity look a lot like fiduciary duties in modern private law. This “fiduciary” reading of the original meaning of the Faithful Execution Clauses might have important implications in modern constitutional law. Our history supports readings of Article II of the Constitution, for example, that limit presidents to exercise their power in good faith, for the public interest, and not for reasons of self-dealing, self-protection, or other bad faith, personal reasons. So understood, Article II may thus place some limits on the pardon and removal authority. The history we present also supports readings of Article II that tend to subordinate presidential power to congressional direction, limiting presidential non-enforcement of statutes, and perhaps constraining agencies’ interpretation of statutes to pursue Congress’s objectives. Our conclusions undermine imperial and prerogative claims for the presidency, claims that are sometimes, in our estimation, improperly traced to dimensions of the clauses requiring the President's faithful execution.

Perubahan Perkembangan Dalam Hukum Perdata Modern

Changes in legal development occur because the law and society are dynamic. Changes in the private law have implications for the strengthening of internal control functions that replace external control functions. Developmental changes in the modern private law are closely related to the changing societies and ruling regimes, which strengthen the role and participation of the people on the one hand, and the diminishing role of the state on the other is inseparable from modernization and democratization within the state and society itself. The contract law, labor law, and consumer protection law are subject to changes arising from the strengthening of internal control functions that replace external control functions.

Henry Maine’s “Modern Law”: From Status to Contract and Back Again?†

In this Article, I conduct a long overdue assessment of Henry Maine’s “from Status to Contract” thesis in light of two essentially modern phenomena: contract standardization and relational contracting. Drawing on comparative legal history, classical sociological and anthropological literature, contemporary contract law theory, and recent works in the field of (behavioral) law and economics, I discuss the claim that modern private law is witnessing a reverse movement “from Contract to Status.” I show that this claim is historically inaccurate and conceptually simplistic in that it attributes shades of meaning to status that Maine never contemplated. I dedicate the remainder of the Article to exploring why—in the face of clear countervailing evidence—modern private law scholars continue to engage in Mainean “status”-speak. For this purpose, I tease out several interesting parallels between status as part of Maine’s theory and “status” as part of modern private law discourse. I firstly suggest that scholars mirror Maine’s thesis with their argument that interpersonal rights and obligations frequently result from naturally occurring societal processes that the law normatively reflects; conversely, that said rights and obligations are not necessarily the result of private-autonomous agreements between freestanding individuals. While this argument strikes me as plausible, the conceptual problems that transplanting Maine’s categories into contemporary private law discourse entails call for additional justification. I therefore, secondly suggest that it is the directional appeal of Maine’s linear or absolutist view that has led modern private law scholars to engage in Mainean “status”-speak. In order to assess the defensibility of this claim, I consider whether the “from Status to Contract and back again” thesis has any merit. Are we witnessing a reverse movement from the mostly private-autonomous creation of contractual rights and obligations to the heteronomous imposition of such rights and obligations on the part of society or the state? To answer this question, I examine a variety of conceptual forces struggling for dominance in modern private law. Two complementary tensions present themselves as relevant to my discussion: the tension between freedom of contract and constitutional paternalism, and the tension between perfect contracting solutions and second-best alternatives. I go on to show that “status”-like elements—i.e., elements that play on the rhetoric and directionality rather than the substance of Maine’s thesis—and contractual elements interact to mediate both tensions. Linear (or absolutist) and dialectical (or “pendulum swing”) theories of socio-legal evolution consequently fall short. Mainean “status”-speak is equally unable to account for the conceptual interaction that my discussion brings to light. To clarify any such interaction between “status”-like and contractual elements, I introduce, explain, and to some extent defend, two hybrid types—contract-status and status-contract. These hybrid types, I argue, go some way toward capturing current tendencies in modern private law. Inconsistencies, however, remain even if we reconstruct modern private law along the lines of contract-status and status-contract. Hence, I call for an update of modern private law’s terminological toolbox. To this end, it is imperative to draw on Maine’s very own methodological postulates. Contemporary scholars intent on saying anything of interest about modern private law would thus be well-advised to emulate Maine’s approach of combining empirical inquiry into economy and society with categories and concepts from the realm of legal theory—all the while freeing themselves from the overbearing influence of his original, loaded categories. In light of these exhortations, I look at one final answer to the question of why modern jurists continue to engage in Mainean “status”-speak. Might increasing references to Maine’s conceptual categories be evidence of a rediscovery of the value of macro-historical approaches for engaging critically with (private) law as a fundamental social institution? I contend that employing such macro-historical approaches is indeed necessary if modern jurists are to take seriously their duties as members of the legal profession, as participants in a broader intellectual and academic discourse, and as citizens of their respective societies.

The Belgian Civil Code: How to Restore its Central Position in Modern Private Law?

Abstract: This essay addresses the status of the Belgian Civil Code in the twenty-first century. If the French revision process should have a successful outcome, Belgium will be one of the last countries to use a nineteenth century code. Does Belgium also need a revision of its Civil Code, or are there suitable alternatives? If a revision is advisable, a more fundamental question arises: How can a revised Belgian Civil Code cope with the stratification of private law and the multiple challenges every European legal system faces today? The first part of this essay briefly elucidates the challenges for the Belgian Civil Code. The second part looks for suitable responses, including (but not limited to) a possible revision of the aforementioned code. The third part will argue that a modernization of the Belgian Civil Code is essential to restore its central position in private law. Since two of the key advantages of codes are their durability and their comprehensive scope, a modern Belgian Civil Code’s content should be limited to concepts, basic principles, and general rules. Any attempt to offer an overview of private law in its entirety in a single civil code can only be detrimental to those two key advantages. Because of the limited powers of a national legislature, the further development of the law can only result from collaboration between many different actors. An unremitting emphasis on the facts underlying hard legal questions and on the legal discourse is a necessary element of such a collaborative contribution.

Abuse of Rights: The Continental Drug and the Common Law

This Article deploys a comparative approach to question a widely shared understanding of the impact and significance of of rights. First, it challenges the idea that of rights is a peculiarly civilian invention, absent in the common law. Drawing on an influential strand of functionalist comparative law, the Article identifies the functional equivalents of the doctrine in the variety of malice rules and reasonableness tests deployed by American courts in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century in fields as diverse as water law, nuisance, tortious interference with contractual relations, and labor law. The Article investigates the reasons why in the United States, contrary to continental systems where rules limiting a malicious or unreasonable use of one's right coalesced into a unitary category of abuse of rights, these rules remained largely nonintegrated. Rationalization of these nonintegrated reasonableness tests and malice rules, I argue, was achieved by means of a novel, unitary style of reasoning, hardly fitting the traditional portrait of nineteenth-century Classical orthodoxy, rather than by means of conceptual integration. Further, the Article suggests that of rights' potential as a tool for social reform was consistently defused. In the United States, rarely and timidly did courts deploy malice rules to effect progressive distributive outcomes. And even when they did, they invariably resorted to the individualistic language of modern private law.

Gabór Hamza, Origine e sviluppo degli ordinamenti giusprivatistici moderni in base alla tradizione del diritto romano (Santiago de Compostela: Andavira Editora, 2013)

The new opus of Gábor Hamza, ordinary Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Full Professor of Roman Law (Faculty of Law of the Eötvös Loránd University [Budapest]), which was published in the fall of 2013 in Italian language, studies the formation and development of modern private law systems based on the tradition of Roman Law.

The Role of Competition Law in Regulatory European Private Law

In the last years we have seen the emergence of a new methodology in European private law, which (finally) dared to shift away from a classical comparative approach to one, which takes European Union law as its proper starting point. Classical European private law scholarship has mainly been backwards looking insofar as the law of the Member States, and predominantly the old codifications, determined both form and substance of new regulatory attempts. Today, this traditional approach still remains the predominant working method of the acquis group. But recent improvements in the academic debate surrounding European private law suggest a more European approach to questions of harmonisation. Taking the Treaties, secondary legislation and jurisprudence of the ECJ as its premise, academics have attempted to extrapolate common ‘European’ principles and rules to provide desperately needed substance in the search for more coherence in the continuing harmonisation process of private law. Some characteristics should be stressed as far as this new scholarship is concerned. First, it is heavily influenced by an idea which can be called ‘Europeanisation of law through hybridisation of remedies’. Second, the methodology and reasoning on which this scholarship relies can only be explained on the basis of the European Economic Constitution. Alongside these main aspects we also find a more functionalistic approach as to how modern private law should be shaped in general. Last, new forms of governance allow for more flexibility in the law-making process, also in view of the actors involved in that process. It is against this background that this contribution seeks to demonstrate in what way competition law can serve as a tool to directly or indirectly influence and regulate private law in the Member States; and, more generally, how it can further the Europeanisation of law. In terms of methodology, I mainly rely on the idea that developments in European private law can be explained by aid of those areas which lie at the periphery of classical private law but at the core of the law of the internal market. To this end, it is necessary to first and foremost understand when and how competition and private law interact in the Union. The aim is to identify both instances in which competition and private law overlap substantially and in what way they complement each other.

The Use of the Functional Method In European Union Property Law

The influence of EU law on the law of property adds a vertical dimension to the otherwise horizontal dimension employed by comparative property lawyers. The traditional functional method can no longer answer the need for modern private law scholarship, especially not EU property scholarship. The traditional functional method is a descriptive method that allows the comparison of functional equivalents at the same level. The dynamics of European integration, however, change the nature of private law by adding a European Union type of functionalism. EU law is focused on the further completion of the internal market and rules that govern the internal market – also known as rules of European economic constitutional law – focus on the effective implementation of EU law in the national legal order. Differences between legal systems of the Member States, how functional equivalent in the traditional sense, cannot survive if they lead to a market access problem. We are therefore in need for a renewed functional method, guided by European economic constitutional law rather than by national law, that better answers to the needs of this new reality.

Risk and Strict Liability: The Distinct Examples of Germany, the US and Russia

Enlightenment, natural law and economic liberalism engendered the grand concept of modern private law. Nearly simultaneously the ongoing process of industrial revolution paved the path into another modernity. Its new paradigms were technical risks, enterprises and insurance. Insurability of losses caused by risky commercial activities created the demand for ‘stricter’ forms of liability beyond fault. The paper presents three different answers to these challenges to civil responsibility. Germany is but a prominent example for the continental EU member states with its mixed system of social insurance, special legislation on strict liability and general fault liability. The US adheres to the negligence system with only marginal corrections. The liability law of the new Russian civil code combines the French and German legal legacy with the revolutionary ideas of the 1922 code leading to two general clauses of quasi-strict and strict liability.

Principles in Private Law: From Luxury to Necessity – Multi-layered Legal Systems and the Generative Force of Principles

Abstract: 'Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuens.' One of the ways to make 'iustitia' (justice) substantial is by using principles. Studying the role of principles in cases governed by various fields of law (e.g., private law and European Union law) makes clear that principles can play a role in two ways. The first is the role recognized in modern private law: principles functioning within a system with detailed rules and bringing as an extra to that system an interpreting, supplementing or derogating function. The second way can be discovered in European Union Law: the generative function of principles used out of necessity to build up a young system and to generate and develop rules in more detail. Cases governed by more layers of law, for example Angonese and Mangold, show that principles indeed may play a role different from the one they play in regular private law cases and that the landscape for the private law lawyer has been reshaped slightly and will be reshaped even more intensely. That being a fact, the question is how a private law lawyer is supposed to define his reaction to these developments, these facts? It is a question that is hardly stressed in the broad debate about multi layered law. The aims of a private law contribution to European Union law in my view are (a) that private law gets integrated in European Union law by adjusting to the aims and principles of European Union law; (b) that it takes part in the process of development, refinement and sophistication of European Union law; (c) that it remains a smoothly functioning part of multi layered law; (d) that private law preserves its ability to give each one his due in a more or less predictable way; (e) that private law for that reason develops its function in supporting the effectiveness of European Union law and (f) that actors in European Union law (e.g., ECJ, legislator) be more aware of the impact of European Union law on private law and for that reason (g) take this impact into due consideration in judgments and provisions. To achieve these aims a two-way traffic between European Union law and private law must be established. The question is: how can private law lawyers, judges and scholars become involved? Which approaches should be chosen in case of confrontation of a field of law, private law, containing refined rules, with a field of law, European Union Law, containing less detailed rules and more concrete policies that do not specifically aim at private law relationships? In other words, which approaches should be taken when confronting a system that has developed into utmost refinement with a system that has started to be built up only a few decades ago. How can these parts of the law be bridged?

Los contratos de consumo en el derecho colombiano y el derecho comparado

<span>Las relaciones económicas entre productores y consumidores encuentran en el derecho un tratamiento especial, que debe ser tenido en cuenta también por los estudiosos de las ciencias económicas. En el derecho privado moderno los contratos de consumo aparecen como una categoría contractual que merece especial atención, dada la preocupación de proteger al contratante débil en aras de buscar la justicia contractual. En el derecho comparado tanto doctrinaria como legalmente, la teoría de los contratos de consumo se han desarrollado. Sin embargo, en el ámbito jurídico colombiano no se ha consolidado realmente este marco doctrinario y legal. Este artículo pretende hacer un aporte frente a este vacío, consolidando algunos conceptos básicos de la teoría de los contratos de consumo apoyándose en el derecho comparado y en algunos avances doctrinales y legales a nivel nacional.</span>

A brief introduction to Hungarian arbitration law

The antecedents of modern arbitration–similarly to several institutes of modern private law–can be found in Roman Law, where arbitration was considered as a way of private dispute resolution. As a leading source in Roman law we can refer to D. 4, 8, which has the following title: De receptis: qui arbitrium receperint ut sententiam dicant. When analyzing the features of arbitration in Roman Law, special attention should be paid to the term of compromissum, which meant the settlement of the parties to submit themselves to the jurisdiction of an arbitrator, who was called arbiter ex compromisso. The term of compromissum on the field of arbitration still plays a particular role in several jurisdictions in Latin America. Concerning the appointment of the arbitrator in Roman law, the most important source in the Digest is perhaps the following sentence: “Arbiter ex compromisso sumptus cum ante diem, qui constitutus compromisso erat, sententiam dicere non potest.” This regulation means that the arbiter ex compromisso cannot judge the case before the parties reached a consensus regarding the appointment of the arbitrator. This rule highlights the importance