When working with an unfamiliar legal topic, your goal is to learn as much about it as possible before you begin looking up primary law or even scholarly commentary.
The sources on this page are specifically designed to provide you with background information. These sources will help you to understand the history and structure of Obligations law, pinpoint and interpret unfamiliar terminology, and distinguish the most reliable primary sources.
Louisiana Law of Obligations in General by 
The Law of Obligations in the Louisiana Jurisprudence: A Coursebook by 
The Roman Law of Obligations by
The Roman Law of Obligations presents a series of lectures delivered by the late Peter Birks as an introductory course in Roman law. Discovered in complete manuscript form following his death, the lectures are published here for the first time.The lectures present a clear conceptual map of the Roman law of obligations, guiding readers through the institutional structure of contract, delict, quasi-contract, and quasi-delict. They introduce readers to the terminology needed to understand the foundations of Roman law, and the conceptualframework of the law of obligations that left an enduring legacy on European private law.The lectures offer an invaluable introduction to Roman private law for those coming to the subject for the first time. They will also make stimulating reading for academics and lawyers interested in Roman law, European legal history, and the lasting influence of Roman law on modern privatelaw.
The Law of Obligations by
This scholarly survey of the Law of Obligations from classical to modern times is a marvellous work of historical synthesis which discusses each contract, tort, and liability based on unjust enrichment with great clarity, and traces their development over hundreds of years through the legal systems of Europe. Not merely a work of Roman legal scholarship, it is a treasure-house of ideas and arguments as well as information and scholarship relating to the Law of Obligations.
The Roman Law of Property and Obligations; an Historical Introduction to Some of the Main Institutions by 
Obligaciones civiles y comerciales by 
Contract As Assumption II by
This second collection of Brian Coote's previously published writings is for the most part a follow-up to his Contract as Assumption (Hart Publishing, 2010). Part of the theme of that collection was that in a bilateral contract the obligations of the parties, both primary and secondary, are those which at formation they have each assumed, that is, have taken upon themselves. Being exchanged at the point of formation, these assumptions constitute the consideration. The institution of contract provides a facility the purpose of which is to enable the parties thereby to bind themselves to legal (contractual) obligation. This emphasis on what happens at formation has prompted the inclusion of several of the papers in this collection. These focus on intention, offer and acceptance, the qualification of primary and secondary obligations whether express or implied, agency, and the effect of illegality on pre-existing rights. Falling outside this group are two pieces respectively on chance and the burden of proof and on impecuniosity, in each case in tort as well as in contract.The collection ends with the author's valedictory lecture, "Contract - an Underview". In this paper, delivered on his retirement from the University of Auckland, he summed up his thinking on Contract. It is now for the first time given general currency.
The Common Law of Obligations by
The development of the law of obligations across the common law world has been, and continues to be, a story of unity and divergence. Its common origins continue to exert a powerful stabilising influence, carried forward by a methodology that places heavy weight on the historical foundations of legal principles. Divergence is, however, produced by numerous factors, including national and international human rights instruments, local statutory regimes, civil law influences, regional harmonisation, local circumstances and values and different political and legal cultures. The essays in this collection explore the forces that produce divergence, the countervailing forces that generate cohesion and consistency in the common law of obligations, and the influence that the major common law jurisdictions continue to exert over one another in this area of law. The chapters in this book were originally presented at the Seventh Biennial Conference on the Law of Obligations held in Hong Kong in July 2014. A second collection, entitled Divergences in Private Law (ISBN: 9781782256601), will focus on particular departures from the common law mainstream and the causes and effects of those deviations.
