Scotland has a special claim for the attention of comparative lawyers, of legal historians, and of those who seek to identify a common core in European private law or to develop a new jus commune. For Scotland stands at the inter-section of the two great traditions of European law - of the law of Rome, received and developed in Continental Europe, and of the law which originated in England but was exported throughout the British Empire. In Scotland, uniquely in Europe, there is to be found a fusion of the civil law and the common law.
Kenneth Reid is Professor of Law at Edinburgh University Reinhard Zimmermann is Professor of Private Law, Roman Law and Comparative Law in the University of Regensburg.