REVIEWS
| Date | 01 December 1937 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1937.tb00022.x |
| Published date | 01 December 1937 |
Dec.,
1937
MODERN
LAW
REVIEW
249
REVIEWS
DAS
RECHT
DES
WARENVERKAUFS:-Vol.
I.
By
ERNST
RABEL.
(1936.)
Berlin, Walter de gruyter
&
Co.
R.M.
25.
Large 8vo.
pp. xxxii and
533.
Comparative lawyers in all countries will extend
a
hearty welcome to
the first volume of Professor Rabel’s treatise on the law of sale of goods.
No
higher praise can be given to it than to say that it corresponds in point
of comprehensiveness and accuracy to what one would expect from the
high reputation which the learned author
so
deservedly enjoys.
The book begins with
a
general survey
of
the various systems of law of
sale of
goods,
and then goes on to deal in detail with the formation of the
Contract of Sale-a topic the importance of which extends
far
beyond the
limits of this particular branch of the law.
A
discussion of the rightsand
duties of the seller completes the volume. The second volume, not yet
published, will deal with the rights and duties of the buyer and with what
an English lawyer would term- implied conditions and warranties. The
most important sections of the first volume are those which relate to three
matters, namely, the formation of the contract,
its
frustration by super-
vening impossibility, and the measure of damages. These embody what
is
perhaps the most important contribution yet made to the comparative
study of the law of Obligations.
As
the author acknowledges,
it
was Professor Lambert of Lyon who
first
directed the attention of comparative lawyers to the fertile field which lay
open to their investigations in what he very aptly termed “mobile law.”
By
this he meant those rules which are constantly in operation and
are called upon to solve the same problems in all countries. They are
essentially dynamic and constitute one of the main sources of the conflicts
of law which
it
is one of the tasks of the comparative lawyer to dispel.
In
particular Professor Lambert referred to the law of sale of
goods
as
being
a
topic of this nature, and he had not long to wait before his ideas were
translated into action. The large measure
of
success which in
1930
and
1931
attended the efforts
of
the Economic Section
of
the League of Nations
to secure the unification of the law of negotiable instruments led to the
belief that
a
like result might, perhaps, be amved
at
in the case
of
the law
of sale. The task of investigating the matter and of framing proposals for
unification was accordingly entrusted by the League to the Institute for the
Unification of Private Law
at
Rome, which in
its
turn confided
it
to
a
Com-
mittee of experts representing the principal European systems of law. After
three years of research and discussion this Committee drafted
a
Uniform
Law of Sale which is
at
the moment under consideration by the League
and the various governments which have been consulted. Professor Rabel
was the “live wire” of the Rome Committee and most of the spade work
which preceded the work of drafting was done under his supervision
at
the
Institut
fur
auslandisches Privatrecht in Berlin. The results of these
preliminary studies have formed the basis of the work now under
review.
Two observations of
a
general character must be made. In the first
place the book is prima facie one for the specialist rather than for the
general reader, but
it
will beyond doubt appeal to
a
wider circle than that
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