Construction Law: The English Route to Modern Construction Law

Authors

Vivian Ramsey, King's College, London

Keywords

Construction law, contract law, torts, insurance law, land law, tenant law, employment law, intellectual property law, public procurement law

Abstract

In this Article, I will look at the way that construction law has developed in the English common law world from its roots in the law of England and Wales. Whilst common law traditions are now applied to many jurisdictions, the number of jurisdictions in which English precedents are binding is now small. But, in many common law jurisdictions decisions of the English courts are still treated as “persuasive.” English decisions in the field of construction law have an extensive reach in terms of their persuasiveness. First, having a long-established court system, including a specialist court for 150 years, has meant that the decisions of the English court have often been the only decisions on points of principle relating to construction. Secondly, forms of contract derived from English standard forms of contract have been and continue to be used worldwide, most commonly in the FIDIC forms of contract. Today, therefore, contracts derived from these English standard forms are used in civil law countries, particularly in the Middle East, and questions of interpretation are very often based on decisions of the English courts, applied of course in the context of the local law.

Recommended Citation

Vivian Ramsey, Construction Law: The English Route to Modern Construction Law, 75 Ark. L. Rev. (2022).
Available at: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/alr/vol75/iss2/4