European Private Law

The course aims at providing an understanding of the process of Europeanization of private law. After a basic introduction on the institutional framework of EU law, necessary to understand its interplay with the purposes and methods of private law harmonization, the course focuses on EU Primary Sources (in particular, EU fundamental rights and freedoms, and their horizontal effects in private law matters) and EU Secondary Sources (with focus on legislative and judiciary techniques of unification and harmonization of the law). Attention is given also to the role of the European Court of Justice in the edification of EU private law and to the results of non-legislative projects of harmonization promoted at European level. The core areas of EU private law are then surveyed (contract law, with specific focus on consumer contracts; tort law, with specific focus on product liability regimes; basic issues of EU data protection law, and hints to European family and property law).