Burgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB)

The Burgerliches Gesetzbuch, abbreviated BGB and commonly translated as the German Civil Code, is the general private law code of Germany. It was enacted in 1896 after more than twenty years of drafting by successive commissions charged with unifying the patchwork of Roman, Germanic and regional civil laws still in force across the German states after 1871 unification, and it entered into force on 1 January 1900 alongside the new German Empire's Introductory Act. Its five books, a general part, the law of obligations, property law, family law and inheritance law, follow the Pandectist method of German nineteenth century legal science, building the code from abstract general principles down to specific rules rather than the Napoleonic Code's more direct, illustrative style. The BGB has been repeatedly amended, most substantially by the 2002 modernization of the law of obligations, but remains in force today and has directly shaped the civil codes of Japan, South Korea, Greece, and, through the Swiss Civil Code, other jurisdictions that drew on German legal science.