Academic contributors and funders

The pan-European teams

As indicated already, the DCFR is the result of more than 25 years’ collaboration of jurists from all jurisdictions of the present Member States within the European Union. It began in 1982 with the constitution of the Commission on European Contract Law (CECL) and was furthered by the establishment of the Study Group in 1998 and the Acquis Group in 2002. From 2005 the Study Group, Acquis Group and Insurance Contract Group formed the so-called ‘drafting teams’ of the CoPECL network. The following DCFR is the result of the work of the Study Group, Acquis Group and CECL.

The Study Group on a European Civil Code

The Study Group has had the benefit of Working (or Research) Teams – groups of younger legal scholars under the supervision of a senior member of the Group (a Team Leader). The Teams undertook the basic comparative legal research, developed the drafts for discussion and assembled the extensive material required for the notes. To each Working Team was allocated a consultative body –

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Its Co-ordinating Group

an Advisory Council. These bodies – deliberately kept small in the interests of efficiency – were formed from leading experts in the relevant field of law, who represented the major European legal systems. The proposals drafted by the Working Teams and critically scrutinised and improved in a series of meetings by the respective Advisory Council were submitted for discussion on a revolving basis to the actual decision-making body of the Study Group on a European Civil Code, the Co-ordinating Group. Until June 2004 the Coordinating Group consisted of representatives from all the jurisdictions belonging to the EU immediately prior to its enlargement in Spring 2004 and in addition legal scholars from Estonia, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Slovenia and Switzerland. Representatives from the Czech Republic, Malta, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia joined us after the June 2004 meeting in Warsaw and representatives from Bulgaria and Romania after the December 2006 meeting in Lucerne. Besides its permanent members, other participants in the Co-ordi- nating Group with voting rights included all the Team Leaders and – when the relevant material was up for discussion – the members of the Advisory Council concerned. The results of the deliberations during the week-long sittings of the Co-ordinating Group were incorporated into the text of the Articles and the commentaries which returned to the agenda for the next meeting of the Co-ordinating Group (or the next but one depending on the work load of the Group and the Team affected). Each part of the project was the subject of debate on manifold occasions, some stretching over many years. Where a unanimous opinion could not be achieved, majority votes were taken.

Its Co-ordinating Group

The Study Group’s Co-ordinating Group has (or had) the following members: Professor Guido Alpa (Genoa/Rome, until May 2005), Professor Christian von Bar (Osnabrück, chairman), Professor Maurits Barendrecht (Tilburg, until May 2005), Professor Hugh Beale (Warwick), Dr. Mircea-Dan Bob (Cluj, since June 2007), Professor Michael Joachim Bonell (Rome), Professor Mifsud G. Bonnici (Valetta, since December 2004), Professor Carlo Castronovo (Milan), Professor Eric

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The Study Group’s Working Teams

Clive (Edinburgh), Professor Eugenia Dacoronia (Athens), Professor

Ulrich Drobnig (Hamburg), Professor Bénédicte Fauvarque-Cosson

(Paris), Professor Marcel Fontaine (Louvain, until December 2003), Professor Andreas Furrer (Lucerne, since December 2003), Professor

Júlio Manuel Vieira Gomes (Oporto), Professor Viggo Hagstrøm (Oslo, since June 2002), Supreme Court Judge Torgny Håstad (Stockholm), Professor Johnny Herre (Stockholm), Professor Martijn Hesselink (Amsterdam), Professor Ewoud Hondius (Utrecht, until May 2005), Professor Jérôme Huet (Paris), Professor Giovanni Iudica (Milan, since June 2004), Dr. Monika Jurcˇova (Trnava, since June 2006), Professor Konstantinos Kerameus (Athens), Professor Ole Lando (Copenhagen), Professor Kåre Lilleholt (Bergen/Oslo, since June 2003), Professor Marco Loos (Amsterdam); Professor Brigitta Lurger (Graz), Professor Hector MacQueen (Edinburgh), Professor Ewan McKendrick (Oxford), Professor Valentinas Mikelenas (Vilnius, since December 2004), Professor Eoin O’Dell (Dublin, until June 2006), Professor Edgar du Perron (Amsterdam), Professor Denis Philippe (Louvain, since June 2004), Professor Jerzy Rajski (Warsaw), Professor Christina Ramberg (Gothenburg), Supreme Court Judge Professor Encarna Roca y Trias (Madrid/Barcelona), Professor Peter Schlechtriem† (Freiburg i. Br.), Professor Martin Schmidt-Kessel (Osnabrück, since December 2004), Professor Jorge Sinde Monteiro (Coimbra, until December 2004), Professor Lena Sisula-Tulokas (Helsinki), Professor

Sophie Stijns (Leuven), Professor Matthias Storme (Leuven), Dr. Stephen Swann (Osnabrück), Professor Christian Takoff (Sofia, since June 2007), Professor Lubos˘ Tichy´ (Prague, since June 2005), Professor Verica Trstenjak (Maribor, until December 2006), Professor Vibe Ulfbeck (Copenhagen, since June 2006), Professor Paul Varul (Tartu, since June 2003), Professor Lajos Vékás (Budapest), Professor Anna Veneziano (Teramo).

The Study Group’s Working Teams

Permanent working teams were based in various European universities and research institutions. The teams’ former and present ‘junior members’ conducted research into basically three main areas of private law: the law of specific contracts, the law of extra-contractual

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The Study Group’s Advisory Councils

obligations, and property law. They sometimes stayed for one or two years only, but often considerably longer in order additionally to pursue their own research projects. The meetings of the Co-ordinat- ing Group and of numerous Advisory Councils were organised from Osnabrück, in conjunction with the relevant host, by Ina El Kobbia.

The members of the Working Teams were: Begoña Alfonso de la Riva,

Georgios Arnokouros, Dr. Erwin Beysen, Christopher Bisping, Ole Böger, Michael Bosse, Manuel Braga, Dr. Odavia Bueno Díaz, Sandie Calme, Dr. Rui Cascão, Cristiana Cicoria, Martine Costa, Inês Couto Guedes, Dr. John Dickie, Tobias Dierks, Dr. Evlalia Eleftheriadou, Dr. Wolfgang Faber, Silvia Fedrizzi, Dr. Francesca Fiorentini, Dr. Andreas Fötschl, Laetitia Franck, Dr. Caterina Gozzi, Alessio Greco, Lodewijk Gualthérie van Weezel, Stéphanie van Gulijk, Judith Hauck, Dr. Lars Haverkamp, Dr. Annamaria Herpai, Dr. Viola Heutger, Dr. Matthias Hünert, Professor Chris Jansen, Dr. Christoph Jeloschek, Menelaos Karpathakis, Dr. Stefan Kettler, Ina El Kobbia, Dr. Berte-Elen R. Konow, Rosalie Koolhoven, Caroline Lebon, Jacek Lehmann, Martin Lilja, Roland Lohnert, Birte Lorenzen, Dr. María Ángeles Martín Vida, Almudena de la Mata Muñoz, Pádraic McCannon, Dr. Mary-Rose McGuire, Paul McKane, José Carlos de Medeiros Nóbrega, Dr. Andreas Meidell, Philip Mielnicki, Anastasios Moraitis, Sandra Müller, Franz Nieper, Teresa Pereira, Dr. Andrea Pinna, Sandra Rohlfing, Dr. Jacobien W. Rutgers, Johan Sandstedt, Marta Lívia dos Santos Silva, Dr. Mårten Schultz, Manola Scotton†, Frank Seidel, Anna von Seht, Susan Singleton, Dr. Hanna Sivesand, Daniel Smith, Dr. Malene Stein Poulsen, Dimitar Stoimenov, Dr. Stephen Swann, Ferenc Szilágyi, Dr. Amund Bjøranger Tørum, Pia Ulrich, Muriel Veldman, Carles Vendrell Cervantes, Ernest Weiker, Aneta Wiewiorowska, Bastian Willers.

The Study Group’s Advisory Councils

The members of the Advisory Councils to the permanent working teams (who not infrequently served more than one team or performed other functions besides) were: Professor Hugh Beale (Warwick), Professor John W. Blackie (Strathclyde), Professor Michael G. Bridge (London), Professor Angel Carrasco (Toledo), Professor

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