Civil and Common Law

This text is a chapter in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of the New Private Law. It aims to answer the question, “what can the civil law tradition tell us about the New Private Law?” It seeks to do this by offering one civilian’s perspective on private law, on U.S. private law, and on the New Private Law. The paper looks first at different answers that could be given to the question of what constitutes a civilian perspective. It goes on to ask whether a civilian might have a different understanding of the domain of private law than many of those who work in what is sometimes called, in the English-speaking world, private law theory. Finally, the paper asks what insights the civilian’s understanding of the discipline of law may offer to the New Private Law