The Influence of Roman Law on Chinese Civil Law
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34630/e-rei.vi14.7419Keywords:
Roman law, Chinese civil law, codification, legal reception, comparative lawAbstract
This paper examines the reception of Roman law in contemporary Chinese civil law as a phenomenon of systematic and conceptual influence rather than a merely terminological borrowing. It first outlines the foundations of the premodern Chinese legal order, structured around Confucian Li and imperial Fa, characterized by a limited technical development of private law. It then analyses the reformist turn of the late nineteenth century and China’s choice of the continental Romanist model, transmitted primarily through Japan and German Pandectist scholarship. The study subsequently traces the major codification milestones of the twentieth century, including the 1911 and 1918 drafts and the Republican Civil Code of 1930, still in force in Taiwan, together with their interruption in 1949 and the crisis of legality during the Cultural Revolution. Finally, it examines the post-1978 revival of Romanist legal thought and its normative consolidation in the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China, in force since 2021, highlighting the central role of categories such as juridical act, obligations, real rights, and good faith.
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