ABSTRACT
In civil law countries national codifications strengthened the safety and power of national law, but as Rudolph von Jhering argued already in the 19th century this was achieved by reducing legal scholarship to ‘Rechtskunde’ a kind of legal area study. However, a legal science, with the aim to preserve the legal order by keeping it consistent and to promote generally accepted legal principles must by definition of a scientific approach transcend national borders and not disregard fundamentals. Until the national codifications the curriculum for the study of law in all Western European law Schools was the same. On the contrary, the codifications focused legal teaching and writing on the national level at the expense of teaching overarching and foundational problems. The general problems of law, which were central during the times of jus commune became peripheral for legal teaching. And what was peripheral before became central. The discipline of comparative civil law is an attempt to counteract and provide lawyers with a more comprehensive view on the working of law. Social sciences and economics inform about the societal consequences of legal norms on a level which improved significantly with the development of these disciplines and the reliability of their research results. The study and teaching of civil law as a scientific discipline should preserve the legacy of the legal tradition in Western Europe. In present times this implies a more international and more interdisciplinary approach.
Schaefer, Hans-Bernd, Civil Law as a Common European Heritage, Challenges for Law and Economics and for Comparative Law (January 29, 2024).
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