Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
BOOK REVIEW - THE LAW OF OBLIGATIONS: ROMAN FOUNDATIONS OF THE CIVILIAN TRADITION
THE LAW OF OBLIGATIONS: Roman Foundations of the Civilian Tradition. Reinhard Zimmermann, Dr. iur (Hamburg), Professor für Privatrecht, Romischer Recht und Historiche Rechtsvergleichung, Universitat Regensburg. Juta & Co. Ltd., Cape Town (1990) cxxvii and 1142 pp., plus 35 pp. Index. Hardback R297, 30.
This splendid and important work is primarily an exposition of the Roman law of obligations, including contract, delict and liability based on unjust enrichment. It is divided into three sections following these headings and these are further sub-divided. For example, in the part on contract, each of the Roman contracts is discussed, problems are exposed and solutions suggested and of these some much less well-known areas are included, such as Roman suretyship. For this reviewer, Professor Zimmermann’s treatment of the contract of sale is particularly impressive, explaining its various attributes and the development of its doctrines over the period of the ancient law. However, to single out particular areas for mention and praise is perhaps to do less than justice to the remainder. Suffice to say that this book contains a wealth of information, insight, criticism and analysis of the development of the ancient law in these areas and clearly rests on an impressive mastery of the secondary literature as well as the texts of Roman law.
However, this book is, as its title suggests, not merely a work of Roman legal scholarship. As Professor Zimmermann argues, “Roman law does not only form the historical basis of only one particular, national legal system; it provides the most essential foundations of the ‘civilian’ tradition”. Professor Zimmermann therefore takes his discussion of the law of obligations beyond the time of Justinian, discussing particular doctrines as they developed in the ensuing centuries, in the hands of the natural lawyers, such as Grotius and Pothier, and into modern civil law. In this respect, Professor Zimmermann looks in particular at the treatment of Roman rules and ideas by German and South African lawyers and courts, sometimes adding to this French law. And, though not primarily dealing with the common law, it is by no means altogether neglected. While traditionally the term civilian is often restricted to those—in particular, continental—legal systems whose reception of Roman law is clearly
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