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The German Law of Contract

The German Law of Contract A Comparative Treatise, 2nd Edition

Author: Basil S. Markesinis; Hannes Unberath; Angus Johnston
Publisher: Hart Publishing
ISBN: 9781841134727
Published In: February 2006
Format: Paperback , 1040 pages
Jurisdiction: Germany ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Recently the contract section of the German Code was radically amended after one hundred years of un-altered existence. The German Law of Contract, radically recast, enlarged, and re-written now details and explains for the first time these changes for the benefit of Anglophone lawyers.

Along with its companion work, The German Law of Torts, the two volumes provide, in a total of some 2,000 pages, one of the fullest accounts of the German Law of Obligations available in the English (or German) language. One hundred and twenty translated contract decisions, coming from the pens of distinguished academics such as F. H. Lawson, Kurt Lipstein, Tony Weir and Raymond Youngs, added to the one hundred and fifty tort cases already published in the companion tort volume, make this work a unique source-book for students, practitioners, judges and academics wishing to have access to prime sources.

Through its method of presentation of German law, the book also represents an original contribution to the art of comparison. An additional feature of the Contract volume is the way in which it reveals the growing impact which European Directives are having on the traditional, liberal, contract model, thereby bringing German and English law closer to each other, especially in the area of consumer protection.

Sir Basil Markesinis QC, LL.D. (Cantab.), DCL (Oxon.), FBA holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Paris (Sorbonne), Munich, and Ghent and has been repeatedly decorated by the Presidents of France, Germany, Italy and Greece for his services to European law and integration.
Hannes Unberath, D.Phil. (Oxon.), M.Jur. (Oxon.), is Professor of Law at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
Angus Johnston is University Lecturer in Law at the University of Cambridge and Director of Studies in Law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

...a first class authority on contract law not only in the United Kingdom, but all throughout the common law world...the book not only sets out the law as it is today; it also has a strong historic component and shows how developments came about and what their roots are. For a real understanding, but also for teaching purposes, this is extremely valuable and almost indispensable…Common law lawyers will find all familiar aspects of what they expect from a book dealing with contract law. The book even deals with common law institutions unknown to German law…Even for German readers, it would be worthwhile and tempting to discuss almost every topic addressed in The German Law of Contract because the book is not only inspiring for common law lawyers, but for civil law lawyers as well. And what is more, in Germany the book could be, and already sometimes is, used by judges and practitioners to find reasonable advice when deciding their cases. Moreover, it makes an invaluable contribution to the discussions on the emerging European private law. It shows the solutions at which two influential legal systems, and especially their courts, have arrived in difficult cases. It also demonstrates the arguments on which they have relied. I am not aware of a German book on English contract law that reaches the same high scientific level as The German Law of Contract and fulfils at the same time all requirements that the needs of practical application request. The book must be strongly recommended to everyone interested in, and concerned with, contract law as well as comparative law.
Professor Ulrich Magnus
Tulane Law Review
565 (2006)

Translation from German to English:
The authors admirably and successfully convey the characteristics of German contract law and make the rich German legal culture accessible to the foreign lawyer.
Hans Stoll
Rabels Zeitschrift fur auslandisches und internationales Privatrecht
72 (2008)