René David (January 12, 1906 in Jura, France – May 26, 1990 in Le Tholonet, France) was a French Professor of Law. His work has been published in eight different languages. He was, in the second half of the 20th century, one of the key representatives in the field of comparative law.
Biography.
Between 1929 and 1939 David was a professor at the University of Grenoble. During World War II he served in the French army. After the war, from 1945 to 1968, he was the chair of comparative law at the Faculty of Law of Paris (University of Paris). Subsequently, from 1968 to 1976 he was a professor at the University of Aix-en-Provence.
He worked on several legal projects and assignments, as in 1930 for UNIDROIT (International Institute for the Unification of Private Law) in Rome. He lectured in various places in the world, including the University of Cambridge (1933–35), Columbia University, the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the University of Tehran.
In the sixties, he led the French delegation at the UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law) and from 1962 to 1978 he was a board member of UNIDROIT. David was one of the writers of the Civil Code of Ethiopia in 1960 and a member of the team that wrote the civil law for Rwanda. He was also, in 1973, the head of the publication of the International Encyclopaedia of Comparative Law.
Legal theory.
David, in "Traité élémentaire de droit civile comparé", proposed the classification of legal systems, according to the different ideology inspiring each one, into five groups or families:
Especially with respect to the aggregating by David of the Romano-Germanic and Common Law into a single family, David argued that the antithesis between Common Law and Romano-German Laws, is of a technical rather than of an ideological nature. Of a different kind is, for instance, the antithesis between (say) the Italian and the American Law, and of a different kind that between the Soviet, Muslim, Hindu, or Chinese Law. According to David, the Romano-Germanic legal systems included those countries where legal science was formulated according to Roman Law, whereas common law countries are those where law was created from the judges. The characteristics that he believed uniquely differentiate the Western legal family from the other four are:
Awards.
David was awarded honorary degrees from the University of Edinburgh, Brussels, Ottawa, Basel, Leicester and Helsinki.
On September 17, 1976, he was honored with Amnesty International, with the Erasmus Prize in the Pieterskerk in Leiden.
References.
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