Mitteleuropäische und iberoamerikanische Kodifikationen Wien als Mittelpunkt der Rechtskodifikation auf drei Kontinenten

Abstract

Modern Law Codes answer to the enlightened ideal of purifying and recording once and for all, setting the law by means of legislation: ius in legem redigere. This work encompassed the main branches of law: civil law, canon law, criminal law and business law, and it was done by great jurists between 1753 and 1917. The main settings of codification were Central Europe, done very rigorously, France, in an improvised manner, and the Spanish speaking world, in a perplexing way. In any case, Vienna was the center of codification, there worked three generations of jurists, such as Riegger, Martini and Zeiller, whose significance reached both sides of the Atlantic. In Latin America, under the sign of codification, a whole „Cultura de abogados (culture of lawyers) was born, the great figures of which, such as the canon lawyer Donoso, the civil lawyer Bello and the Brazilian penal lawyer Vasconcelos, appear very much linked to Riegger, Martini and Zeiller.