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Visser, Daniel --- "Unjustified Enrichment" [2006] ELECD 221; in Smits, M. Jan (ed), "Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law

Editor(s): Smits, M. Jan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845420130

Section: Chapter 70

Section Title: Unjustified Enrichment

Author(s): Visser, Daniel

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

70 Unjustified enrichment
Daniel Visser


1 Introduction
The law of unjustified enrichment is in many legal systems the least settled
area of obligations, and therefore most countries, in developing this area of
law, can benefit from engaging in comparative analysis. It should be said
that, historically, civilian and common law jurisdictions approached unjus-
tified enrichment so differently that meaningful comparison seemed an
impossibly difficult task; and within each of these legal traditions, too,
there has been very little uniformity. However, lately the conviction has
begun to assert itself that, despite obvious differences, the two legal fami-
lies have as much to learn from each other as do the individual legal systems
within each tradition.
The common law, which gave the name of `restitution' to the area of law
that roughly coincided with what civilian systems designated as being con-
cerned with unjustified enrichment, has never exhibited a clear (let alone
uniform) picture of what lay at its core, or of how it should be approached.
In the first half of the 20th century the United States took the lead with the
Restatement of the Law of Restitution (1937) and the work of authors such
as Dawson (1951) and Palmer (1995) made important contributions. By the
end of the century, however, interest had so declined that the opening words
of a review article of a book on enrichment lamented: `Whatever happened
to restitution?' (Heller and Serkin, 1999, p. 1385). The Restatement of the
Law of Unjust Enrichment and Restitution (Third) currently ...