Tortious and Contractual Liability (SINO-EU)

The third project in the cooperation between ETL, ECTIL and the Law School of Yantai University (Sino-European Tort Law Institute), China, is led by Ernst Karner (ETL, ECTIL and Vienna University) and addresses the topic ‘Tortious and Contractual Liability’. Differing notions of the underlying concepts and functions of tortious and contractual liability, as well as the dividing line between the two fields, are a promising subject for a comparative study which seeks to contrast the discussions within continental European law and the common law with the relatively young Chinese perspective.

The study includes introductory contributions on the overall topic of analysis, one given from a European, and one from a Chinese perspective. Two primary questions are each then dealt with by three contributions (reflecting Chinese, common law and continental European perspectives). These analyse 1) the differences between contractual and tortious liability and the reasons for them, and 2) the fields of application of contractual and tortious liability. Finally, a treatment is given of two sample case constellations (one confronting medical liability, the other product liability), providing a practical counterpart to the preceding theoretical analysis. Each of these cases is analysed by a Chinese scholar and by either a continental European or common lawyer.

already published:

Tortious and Contractual Liability

Edited by Ernst Karner
Jan Sramek Verlag, Wien
Hardcover. ISBN 978-3-7097-0275-8
2021, 264 pp

Learn more