Commentary to the Draft Bill on Civil Liability Law

INTRODUCTION Four basic assumptions The Draft Bill takes as its fundament the present state of the intense legal discussion of liability law in Europe, at EU as well as at Member State level. This discussion embodies a huge amount of academic literature. The law of delict in the great codifications of the nineteenth century, the French civil code of 1804 and the German civil code of 1896/1900, merely serve as a first orientation and starting point. The civil law codifications of the nineteenth century, both inside and outside of Europe, were largely modelled on the French Code civil, but from the turn of the twentieth century onwards, the BGB assumed this model role, especially in Japan, Russia, Brazil and China. However, the law of delict in the Japanese (1898) and Chinese (1930) civil codes had also already modified the rigidness of the German law. Now, more than ever, a liability law for the twenty-first century must find its own path.