Activity 2.10 – Civil Law: Modernization of Obligation Law and Contract Law. Tourist Contracts. Real Rights

This activity involves a 6-day seminar that will focus on the Modernization of Obligation Law and Contract Law, Tourist Contracts and Real Rights
The main goal of the activity is to initiate the study and discussion at the university level of the modernization and updating of Book No. IV of the Civil Code of the Philippines, which has been in force since 1950 in the field of law of obligations and contracts, taking in this regard the Spanish experience as a basic reference in comparative law, but also taking into account the process carried out in other European countries, especially in Germany and France.
 
More specifically, the following main objectives can be identified:
 
a) Identify the areas of Philippine contract and obligation law that need to be updated and modernized in order to adapt to the new needs of today’s society.
b) Compare them with the Spanish law of obligations and contracts that is currently being updated and revised.
c) Analyse he suitability of incorporating consumer law and the protection of the weaker party in the field of the law of obligations and contracts: is it within or outside the Civil Code?
d) Analyse the main institutions that a modern law of obligations and contracts should contain.
e) Analyse the updating of the law of obligations and contracts through the codification of jurisprudential figures.
f) Present and study of the 2009 Draft Bill for the Modernization of the Law of Obligations and Contracts of Spain, with special emphasis on the solutions provided to the matters that need to be updated in Philippine Law.
g)Study of the solutions provided to these matters in the reforms carried out in France and Germany.
h) Analyse the adequacy of future incorporation of the above solutions into Philippine law through a comparative study of legal institutions.
i) Support the creation/ updating of subjects in the curriculum of the Bachelor or Master of Laws degree in one or more universities in the Philippines that addresses the modernization of the law of obligations and contracts in the Philippines.
(j) initiate a debate within the Philippine judiciary and university that may serve as a seed for future reform and updating of its law of obligations and contracts, as a starting point for a comprehensive revision of the Philippine Civil Code which has been in force since 1950 
May/2023
Responsible for the activity: José Manuel de Torres Perea

Isabel Martens Jiménez (UMA)
Beatriz García Fueyo (UMA)
Ignacio García Taboada (UMA)
Jesús Martin Fuster (UMA)
Armando Marques Guedes (UNL)
Lurdes Vargas (UNL)
Fabrizio Esposito (UNL)
Gema Tomás (UDeusto)
Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU) and University of San Agustin (USA)
This course is based on the recent European experience, especially after the reforms of the Civil Codes of Germany and France, as well as on the Proposal of the General Commission of Codification of Spain, for the modernization of the Spanish Civil Code in the field of obligations and contracts. The starting point for this modernisation is undoubtedly the Law on the Modernisation of the Law of Obligations in Germany, which entered into force on 1 January 2002 and which has reaffirmed the central position of the German Civil Code (BGB), which has been in force since 1900, within German private law and has become a reference point in this process of updating at European level. A milestone of this 2002 Act was the integration of weak contract law and consumer contract law into the BGB itself. In Spain there have also been important studies and advances for the modernization of our law of obligations and contracts contained in the Civil Code of 1889. The most important one, which will be the basis of the present collaboration proposal with Philippine universities, is the Draft Bill for the Modernization of the Law of Obligations and Contracts, from the Civil Law Section of the General Commission of Codification of Spain, which was submitted by this official Commission under the Spanish Ministry of Justice in 2009. Subsequently, in 2017, the Ministry of Justice appointed a small group of experts to review the 2009 Proposal.
To be implemented
Expected Outputs:

1) 1 seminar;
2) audience of at least 40 people
3) at least 70% attendees who respond the survey satisfied with the event, consider the activity as professionally useful and find that its ducational content correspond to the Philippines’ reality
4) Existence of communication efforts to provide event information to attendees
Achieved Outputs:
To be described

Find out more about the event and its outputs
There are 2 side seminars planned within this activity:

(1) Seminar 1: Evidence-based Policy Cycle: The Experience of Better Regulation
Professor: Fabrizio Esposito (UNL)

(2) Seminar 2: Introduction to the Secondary Law of the Internal Market
Professor: Fabrizio Esposito (UNL)