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Gomez, Fernando --- "The Empirical Missing Links in the Draft Common Frame of Reference" [2010] ELECD 222; in Micklitz, Hans-W.; Cafaggi, Fabrizio (eds), "European Private Law after the Common Frame of Reference" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: European Private Law after the Common Frame of Reference

Editor(s): Micklitz, Hans-W.; Cafaggi, Fabrizio

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848444072

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: The Empirical Missing Links in the Draft Common Frame of Reference

Author(s): Gomez, Fernando

Number of pages: 22

Extract:

6. The empirical missing links in the
Draft Common Frame of Reference*
Fernando Gomez

1. INTRODUCTION
The Principles, Definitions and Model Rules of European Private Law, known
as the Draft Common Frame of Reference (`DCFR')1 constitute the impres-
sive output of an important academic and legal endeavour in the field of
private law and, in particular, of contract law,2 in the European context.
Although largely academic in inspiration and spirit, and almost entirely in
manufacture, the DCFR is not the typical academic product: it is not a
commentary, treatise, collection of essays or papers devoted to European
contract law or to contract law generally. It is a body of proposed model rules,
accompanied3 by a set of standard terms, or definitions, to facilitate compre-
hension, use and application, which may eventually govern real-world behav-
iour of individuals or firms or, at least, influence real-world law-makers in the
drafting of rules which will directly govern the behaviour of economic agents
in society.
Law, understood as the set of social institutions ruling behaviour in organ-
ised and purposeful ways, and not as an academic discipline or field for intel-
lectual scrutiny, and private law in particular, are essentially practical or



* I am grateful to participants at a workshop on the DCFR at the European
University Institute for helpful discussions of the ideas reflected in the chapter, to the
Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Science for financial support, under grants
SEJ2007-60503 and SEJ2006-10041, and to Marian ...