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Institute of Roman law
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Roman legal sources.

General principle

Roman source of law is a cultural asset of jurisprudence in total. The institute of Roman law has its tradition to support and enhance research of interpretation of Roman law. Another import aspect is that we represent these interpretations in teaching.

Various systems of private law organisations are linked more or less to Roman law. This is also valid for European civil law (France: Code Civil, German: BGB, Italien: Codice Civile, Spanish: Codigo Civil), less for the Anglo-Saxon/North American, but strong for the South American jurisdiction, for South Africa (after the elegant jurisprudence of the Dutch) and also for the Japanese law (after models of Code Civil and BGB). The research community of the Romanists therefore sees itself as internationally oriented.

As a prerequisite for existing private law (ABGB), Roman law shows students the functioning of a private law as a whole, its legal institutions and the systemic context.

Legal historical education should make it clear that private law explains from historical development and that behind §§ of the ABGB - at least its original version - is a source mass of the tradition.