The European Group on Tort Law, sometimes called the Spier/Koziol group,Hondius et al, ''Towards a European Civil Code'' (2004), p. 14. is an

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

group devoted to revising tort principles that are supposed to be common to Europe. In 1992 Jaap Spier, who at the time was a professor of law at the

Universiteit van Tilburg Tilburg University is a public research university specializing in the social and behavioral sciences, economics, law, business sciences, theology and humanities, located in Tilburg in the southern part of the Netherlands. Tilburg University has ...

, called together a group of scholars to discuss fundamental questions of

tort law A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishabl ...

on a comparative basis. After exploring the limits of liability, this “Tilburg Group” embarked on quite a demanding project – the drafting of " Principles of European Tort Law” ( PETL). The group, now known under the name “European Group on Tort Law”, has grown considerably in the meantime and currently comprises twenty members. These include Francesco D. Busnelli, Giovanni Comandé (both Pisa, Italy), Herman Cousy (Leuven, Belgium), Dan Dobbs (Arizona, USA), Bill Dufwa (Stockholm, Sweden), Michael Faure (Maastricht, the Netherlands), Israel Gilead (Jerusalem, Israel), Michael Green (Wake Forest, USA), Konstantinos D. Kerameus (Athens, Greece), Bernhard A. Koch (Innsbruck, Austria),

Helmut Koziol Helmut is a German name. Variants include Hellmut, Helmuth, and Hellmuth. From old German, the first element deriving from either ''heil'' ("healthy") or ''hiltja'' ("battle"), and the second from ''muot'' ("spirit, mind, mood"). Helmut may refer ...

(Vienna, Austria), Ulrich Magnus (Hamburg, Germany), Miquel Martín-Casals (Girona, Spain), Jorge F. Sinde Monteiro (Coimbra, Portugal), Olivier Moréteau (Baton Rouge, USA), Johann Neethling (Pretoria, South Africa), W.V. Horton Rogers (Leeds, UK), Jaap Spier (the Hague, the Netherlands),

Luboš Tichý Luboš is a Slavic male given name meaning ''love'' and used mostly in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In Slovakia with spelling Ľuboš. The name is a short form of names like: Luboslav, Lubomir. Notable bearers * Ľuboš Bartečko, Slovak ...

(Prague, Czech Republic), Pierre Widmer (Berne, Switzerland). In order to create an institutional basis for the drafting of the

Principles A principle is a proposition or value that is a guide for behavior or evaluation. In law, it is a rule that has to be or usually is to be followed. It can be desirably followed, or it can be an inevitable consequence of something, such as the law ...

, the

European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law Since November 2000 the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law (ECTIL), based in Vienna, has been an association whose purpose is *to conduct legal and comparative research in the field of national, international and common European tort and ...

(ECTIL) was founded by the group in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

(

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

) at the beginning of 1999. ECTIL also undertakes further research projects in the field of tort and insurance law and is now supported by th
Institute for European Tort Law
of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 2009, the Group has resumed work on the Principles with an eye to expanding the scope of supporting projects and to incorporating all the feedback collected so far. New members include Bjarte Askeland (Bergen, Norway), Ewa Baginska (Torun, Poland), Eugenia Dacoronia (Athens, Greece), Anne Keirse (Utrecht, the Netherlands), Ken Oliphant (Vienna, Austria), Vibe Ulfbeck (Copenhagen, Denmark) and Bénédict Winiger (Geneva, Switzerland).

Bibliography

* J. Spier (ed.), The Limits of Liability: Keeping the Floodgates Shut (1996), * J. Spier (ed.), The Limits of Expanding Liability: Eight Fundamental Cases in a Comparative Perspective (1998), * H. Koziol (ed.), Unification of Tort Law: Wrongfulness (1998), * J. Spier (ed.), Unification of Tort Law: Causation (2000), * U. Magnus (ed.), Unification of Tort Law: Damages (2001), * B.A. Koch/H. Koziol (eds.), Unification of Tort Law: Strict Liability (2002), * J. Spier (ed.), Unification of Tort Law: Liability for Damage Caused by Others (2003), * U. Magnus/M. Martín-Casals (eds.), Unification of Tort Law: Contributory Negligence (2004), * W.V.H. Rogers (ed.), Unification of Tort Law: Multiple Tortfeasors (2004), * P. Widmer (ed.), Unification of Tort Law: Fault (2005), * European Group on Tort Law, Principles of European Tort Law (2005),

References

{{Reflist Tort law European Union law