文档介绍：BUILDING A EUROPEAN CONTRACT LAW: Five Fallacies and Two Castles in Spain Presentation at the mune Congress, 28 November 2002, Amsterdam.
Wouter Snijders
Readers are reminded that this work is protected by copyright. While they are free to use the
ideas expressed in it, they may not copy, distribute or publish the work or part of it, in any
form, printed, electronic or otherwise, except for reasonable quoting, clearly indicating the
source. Readers are permitted to make copies, electronically or printed, for personal and
classroom use.
Introduction
I begin with a citation from Atiyah:
When laws and institutions anically in the English way, it is dangerous to tamper with the different bits which may seem useless and outdated. The proof of this is that the system works as a whole even if we cannot say why it works and what rational purpose the different bits may serve. Each part of the total edifice may well have its purpose, even where we cannot understand it. . Atiyah, Pragmatism and Theory in English Law, London 1987, p. 34, cited by J. Smits, The Making of European Private Law, Antwerp/Oxford/New York 2002, p. 100.
Law pared here with an edifice, obviously a very old edifice with parts the purpose of which has been forgotten. This view mon law reminds me of another citation by one of the great legal scholars of this university, Paul Scholten, who in a famous pape