pean contract law to critical scrutiny and comparison, relating them also to the pertinent historical and comparative background.46 We set out to investigate whether, and to what extent, the texts can be taken to begenuinely European in nature. Do they constitute a manifestation of a common core of European contract law? After all, some of them describe themselves as a ‘restatement’ of European contract law.47 Where we found this was not the case, we have asked whether and, if so, why they should be seen as points of reference for the further development of contract law in Europe. Which one of several competing approaches has been adopted, and does that decision withstand critical analysis? Obviously, then, our project also has a significant historical dimension, both in looking for common ground, and in examining the differences and range of experiences. At the same time, the search for the roots of a rule or concept is of practical significance in that the case law and legal doctrine enveloping a rule or concept in its native system can be of assistance in fleshing out what would otherwise be skeleton texts. Contrary to most of the earlier reference texts, the Common European Sales Law was supposed to become an authoritative legislative reference text, an optional code of European contract law rather than just a non-legislative codification.48 Meanwhile, however, the European Commission has withdrawn that proposal, and thus, for the time being, the Commission’s ambitious plan to codify European contract law seems to have collapsed. Our project attempts a comprehensive and balanced account of where we stand today. It points out that of the textual layers, the earlier ones are often superior in quality than the later ones; it pro46 For the project, see Nils Jansen & Reinhard Zimmermann, ‘European Contract Laws: Foundations, Commentaries, Synthesis’, in Jansen & Zimmermann 2018 (some passages in the following two paragraphs are taken from that text); Nils Jansen & Reinhard Zimmermann, ‘Im Labyrinth der Regelwerke’, Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht 25 (2017), 761–4. 47 See Max Planck Encyclopedia 2012, 1464–8, s.v. ‘Restatements’ by Ralf Michaels. 48 For term and concept, see Nils Jansen, The Making of Legal Authority: Non-legislative Codifications in Historical and Comparative Perspective (Oxford: OUP, 2010); see also Reinhard Zimmermann, ‘“Wissenschaftliches Recht”am Beipspiel (vor allem)des europäischen Vertragsrechts’, inChristian Bumke&AnneRöthel (eds.), Privates Recht (Tübingen:Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 21–48. part v • comparative legal history • reinhard zimmermann 244
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