Course 2024-2025 a.y.

General Part

-          History, functions, and aims of comparative law

-          Methodology of comparative law

-          The Western legal tradition: cultural and historical backgrounds (common law and civil law systems)

-          The ‘common core’ of European private law: the Principles of European Contract Law (PECL) and the Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR). The projects of a European civil code

-          Uniform law (United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sales of Goods - CISG; UNCITRAL; UNIDROIT)

-          Overview on African laws

Special Part

-          Comparative contract law

-          Comparative tort law

-          Comparative law of unjustified enrichment

-          Comparative property law

• Correctly identify the main features of the legal systems belonging to the Western legal tradition and gain some acquaintance with the laws of African countries
• Understand the perspectives of a codification of European private law
• Describe the legal instruments directed to apply foreign private law, uniform private law and the principles of European law in contract drafting, litigation and arbitrations

• Assess costs and benefits in applying foreign private law, uniform law and the principles of European law, compared to domestic law
• Consult the sources of foreign private law, uniform private law and European private law while conducting a research of statutes, cases and academic literature
• Draft and present memoranda predicting the outcomes of a case between legal systems and explain such outcomes

• Lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Practical Exercises
• Individual works / Assignments
• Collaborative Works / Assignments
• Interaction/Gamification

• Guest speakers will speak about their own field of expertise in class or give separate lectures. 
• Exercises will involve research of printed and/or electronic legal resources.
• Case studies will be illustrated and discussed in class.
• Group assignments will consist in drawing up a memorandum supported by a PwP presentation.
• Interactive class activities will consist in discussing memoranda and peer evaluating them.

In order to evaluate whether the above-mentioned learning outcomes have been achieved, students will be assessed in the following manner: 

-          Ongoing evaluation (for attending students): group assignment + presentation in class.

-          Ongoing evaluation (for attending students): a student’s grade – based on the ongoing evaluation – can be increased up to 1 full point for active participation in class.

-          Attending students must take two partial exams: partial and end-of-semester. Each of them consists of multiple-choice questions (alternatives: a, b, c, d; --> there is solely one correct answer to each question) and open-ended questions.

The registered grade is the average between the grades of the two partial exams.

The program of each partial exams for attending students will be communicated in class.

-          Students failing to pass either of the two partial exams, have to take a general exam, consisting of multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions

- Only attending students can participate in the group assignment.

-          Non-attending students will be assessed based on a general exam, which consists of multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions.

Student assessment will be grounded on the written exam and will gauge how well students understand and can illustrate the solutions and legal problems faced by legal systems that are taken into consideration within the program.

• General Part

1) P. Sirena, Introduction to Private Law (3rd edn, il Mulino 2019): chapters I, II, III, IV, VII, VIII.2 (VIII.2.1, 2.2, 2.3) VIII.3, IX, X (para 4.3, 5, 5.1., 5.2), XI. The parts of the text that are printed in a smaller font and indented can be read for sake of information but must not be covered for assessment purposes. The same applies to footnotes.

• Special Part

2) Mathias Reimann and Reinhard Zimmermann (eds), Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law (2nd edn, Oxford, 2019):

-          Chapter 33 – Kötz “Comparative Contract Law”

-          Chapter 35 – Visser “Unjustified Enrichment in Comparative Perspective”

-          Chapter 36 - Wagner “Comparative Tort Law”

-          Chapter 37 - Van Erp “Comparative Property Law”

All students are responsible for the teaching materials discussed in class and available on Blackboard.

• General Part

1) P. Sirena, Introduction to Private Law (3rd edn, il Mulino 2019): chapters I, II, III, IV, VII, VIII.2 (VIII.2.1, 2.2, 2.3) VIII.3, IX, X (para 4.3, 5, 5.1., 5.2), XI. The parts of the text that are printed in a smaller font and indented can be read for sake of information but must not be covered for assessment purposes. The same applies to footnotes.

• Special Part

2) Mathias Reimann and Reinhard Zimmermann (eds), Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law (2nd edn, Oxford, 2019):

-          Chapter 33 – Kötz “Comparative Contract Law”

-          Chapter 35 – Visser “Unjustified Enrichment in Comparative Perspective”

-          Chapter 36 - Wagner “Comparative Tort Law”

-          Chapter 37 - Van Erp “Comparative Property Law”