Common Interests in Private Law. A Reflection on the Leading Narrative of Private Law

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Private law is commonly understood as the field of law, where the coordination of individual inter-ests takes place among free and equal individuals. This description does not mention common in-terests, i. e. interests that cannot be ascribed to a single person or a limited group of persons. And yet, common interests form an integral part of private law. However, the role common interests play in private law is subject to an ongoing discussion.This is where the postdoctoral thesis comes in: it describes and explains the role of common inter-ests in private law from a theoretical and from a dogmatic perspective. In doing so, it pursues two main aims:First, it aims to expand and deepen the knowledge of the ways in which common interests are taken into account in private law, their mode of operation and their function. Selected common interests – environmental protection, the promotion of infrastructure and furthering equality – serve as refer-ence materials. Private law legislation and jurisprudence with reference to the respective common interests are sorted and classified. Based on the classification, further observations are made on the relationship of common interests to similarly positioned individual interests, the role of the legisla-ture and the judiciary in their processing, the methods used for their consideration and the practical significance of the laws and decisions. It follows from the examination that the consideration of common interests is now firmly anchored in private law, particularly in the evolving areas of private environmental law and antidiscrimination law.Second, the thesis aims to widen the knowledge about the discursive mechanisms at play in the discipline of private law. It has been written during a time, in which private law jurisprudence finds itself in a state of methodological self-reflection. The thesis contributes to this ongoing debate. It shows that a leading narrative is detectible, which passes on the idea that the consideration of common interests is foreign to private law. The leading narrative is powerful, although legal history studies have weakened it and alternative understandings of private law are advocated. The analysis examines the reasons for the longevity of the leading narrative. In this process, it looks at the private law discourse from an outside perspective, which is nevertheless deeply informed by legal knowledge.