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emphyteusis into one institution. A few jurisdictions have developed new categories of time-limited interests in land.

3. The approach and purpose of this study

3.1. Background

This project forms part of a larger project initiated by Ugo Mattei and Mauro Bussani entitled ‘The Common Core of European Private Law’. Building on the results of the methods and investigations of Rudolf Schlesinger and his followers at the Cornell Law School in the 1960s, the main aim of the project is to unearth what is common (or indeed uncommon) among the private law systems of the member states of the European Union. The project envisages the demarcation of a legal map of Europe by unearthing similarities without imposing new rules or different categories. A unique characteristic of the Common Core Project is that national reporters are asked to discuss hypothetical situations instead of presenting their legal systems in an abstract way by the formulation of principles, rules and exceptions to the rules. This so-called functional approach aims to prove that the answers to specific hypothetical situations are broadly similar irrespective of the reasoning and dogmas used to arrive at the answer.

Since the aim of the project is to find out how the law of a particular system deals with problems raised by factual situations, the editors are asked to make use of as little legal terminology as possible in selecting and formulating the cases. The beneficial aspect of such an approach is that it avoids the difficulties that dogmatic rigidity can pose. The dangers inherent in classical comparative studies (focusing on concepts, principles and rules) are greater than in other branches of property law. If one concentrates primarily on, for instance, the important dividing lines between whether a lease gives rise to a right in rem or a right in personam, or on general principles of registration as the overriding factor for making time-limited rights enforceable against third parties, one may probably attribute more weight than is justified to these conceptual differences. The present research shows that these conceptual dividing lines and differences matter less for the practical outcome of cases than the mode of analysis adopted that one might expect.

The more problematic aspect of this approach is that in contrast to projects concerning the law of contract and delict such as ‘Good Faith in European Contract Law’ and ‘Pure Economic Loss’, it is not easy to

formulate factual situations on time-limited interests without using legal terminology. This is illustrated by the way in which most of the cases are presented. A good example is the issue in Case 2: whether and in what circumstances a previously created time-limited interest will be enforceable against a successor-in-title to the land. In order to request reporters to answer this question with regard to each time-limited interest recognised in that particular jurisdiction, it was necessary to start from a neutral factual situation. The same is true of the rest of the Cases dealing with the effect of attachment of the property, the insolvency of the owner of the burdened property and the dispossession or disturbance of the factual hold which the holder has on the property. In Cases 5–10 on the content of the time-limited right, the editors were able to formulate the factual situations in a less dogmatic manner. Similarly, Cases 11–13 on land development succeeded to a large extent in formulating pure factual situations with little dogmatic veneer.

3.2. Drawing a geographical map of the law of Europe

The aim of the Common Core Project is to draw at least ‘the main lines of a reliable geographical map of the law of Europe’. In other words, the goal is to paint a general picture of the different rules in different jurisdictions across the continent. According to the general editors, the use of this map is of little ‘concern to the cartographers who are drafting it’. In actual fact their aim is not to force the diverse reality of the law which exists in practice into one single map in order to obtain uniformity. Such an endeavour will be fruitless. The project is directed neither at the preservation of traditional legal rules nor as a movement to achieve a higher measure of harmonisation of European private law. Nor is it designed to be a stepping stone towards the realisation of a European Civil Code. In contrast to the activities of the Lando Commission and the European trend to write case books on European law, the Common Core Project is not engaging in city planning but rather in agnostic legal cartography. In the present study, the various legal formants shaping the outcomes of legal disputes have been intermingled without any sharp demarcation.

The main goal of the editors and national contributors to the present study is to provide methodical and reliable information in an objective way without forcing uniformity where it does not exist. We are, however, also interested in what lies ahead after stock has been taken. We are of the opinion that the summary of similarities and differences in the final chapter of this book may be useful with a