Foundations of Private Law Property, Tort, Contract, Unjust Enrichment

• Comprehensive treatment of all the basic fields of private law: property, tort, contract and unjust enrichment allowing these fields to be seen as parts of a unified subject
• Shows how the history of the common law and civil law are related and how modern law depends on developments in the past
• Brings insights from a background in philosophy to the analysis

Foundations of Private Law is a treatise on the Western law of property, contract, tort and unjust enrichment in both common law systems and civil law systems. The thesis of the book is that underlying these fields of law are common principles, and that these principles can be used to explain the history and development of these areas. These underlying common principles are matters of common sense, which were given their archetypal expression by older jurists who wrote in the Aristotelian tradition. These principles shaped the development of Western law but can resolve legal problems which these older writers did not confront.

Readership: Comparative law scholars; scholars in legal history; and those working on the unification of European law.