The European Legal Development Project

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The European Legal Development project is examining the factors that shape the development of legal systems in Europe. It has been funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and will last from 1 January 2005 until 31 December 2007.

The topic of legal development is broad and, to make it manageable, we have planned a programme of work which has built up from a number of case studies and will move towards a more general analysis and conclusions. Although we are concerned with legal development and many of those involved in the project are lawyers, we are also concerned to include and benefit from the insights of historians, sociologists and scholars in other disciplines.

We have chosen liability for fault 1850 to 2000 as our major area of study. Around 1850, there were many similarities in approaches to liability for fault across the legal systems of Western Europe. But since then, there has been significant divergence. Our interest is first to chart the changes and then to seek the explanations for what happened.

As a first stage, we have been working on six areas which illustrate the general theme of liability for fault and relate to its role in relation to major changes that have occurred in society. For a description of each project and the outcomes related to it click on the project name below:

• Legal Doctrine;
• Medical Liability;
• Product Liability;
• Relations between Neighbours;
• Technological Change;
• Traffic and Railways.

The research has involved scholars from a range of countries, in particular, England and Scotland, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Sweden, Austria and Italy. Each working group draws on the expertise of both senior and more junior scholars familiar with different European legal systems, and contains a mixture of comparative lawyers and legal historians.

The papers from the first stage are being finalised. We anticipate publication by Cambridge University Press in 2008.

The project is currently engaged in a second stage focussing on three themes that examine factors that have shaped legal development in the fields studied in the first stage projects. These cover:

• Institutions and Professions;
• The Influence of the Economy;
• Legal and Social Philosophy. 

A set of papers for these themes will be produced by December 2007. These will also lead to publications.

We will be holding a conference to publicise the results achieved by the Project on 19 December 2007, and this will be open to a wide community of scholars. For further information please contact cels@law.cam.ac.uk.