Unjust Enrichment System

As a traditional and constantly renewed system in the field of civil law, unjust enrichment is closely studied both in court and in academia of civil-law countries such as Germany, Japan and Taiwan. It is constantly renewed with the development of society, rationale and legislation. The common-law system, UE has developed to be the third largest area of law alongside contract and tort. Unfortunately, UE is briefly regulated in the legislation of China Mainland. With only one article on UE, neither General Principles of the Civil Law nor newly published The Draft of Civil Law makes concrete, specific and operative provisions on the constitution and effect of UE. Reasons for this situation are: 1) neither the academic circle nor the practical circle of Mainland has proper interpretation on the value of UE system. They wrongly consider that UE functions as just a supplementary tool. 2) In short of systematical and in-depth study on UE. Sufficient rationale is the precondition of codification of civil law. And systematic and in-depth study on specific systems is crucial to academic preparation. This article reevaluated the functions of UE system and does systematic and in-depth study on the special structure of the system. With respect to the analytical clues, the author pays equal attention to discharge and design. After criticizing the relevant wrong opinions, he goes on to redesign the functions and structure of UE them. With respect to the analytical methods, this article stresses System Theory and comparison. Positioning UE as a systematic existence, the author examines EU in the system. The systematic existence is the unit of external and internal system. From the perspective of external system, UE is widely and closely connected with other systems, which is the difficulty and charm of the study on UE. From the perspective of internal system, the structure of UE legal fact and the legal effect of UE interact, so does the constitutive elements of legal facts of UE. The establishment of the elements of the external and internal systems of UE and the structural arrangement for them determines the effect of the functions of UE. Conversely, the establishment of UE functions impacts on the arrangement of UE system itself. Comparisons arefrequently made in the research process. By comparing and analyzing legislations and theory, this article aims to design a modern UE system applicable to current China.This article composes of four parts with over 200,000 Chinese characters: Introduction, Straight Matter, and Conclusion. The part of Introduction discusses the factual, logic and value background of the structure of UE. The author demonstrates that UE exits as a system whose existence and scope of application is deeply influenced by social state (fact), legal structure (logic) and purpose of legislation (value). From the perspective of social situation, the scope of application of UE is influenced by historical tradition, culture, and customs in which the law system is rooted. With respect to the legal structure (logic), the structure of UE is influenced by both internal and external structural factors. Internal factors are those constituted of legal facts, and external ones are other systematical factors of civil law. With respect to the purpose of legislation (value), UE is influenced by legislators' choice - making on values, which is subjective and transcends all objective reality.The part Straight Matte includes seven chapters: Chapter One, the History of UE; Chapter Two, the Foundation and Function of UE; Chapter Three, the legal structure of UE;Chapter Four,the legal effect of UE; Chapter Five,special unjust enrichment;Chapter Six, the classifications of UE; Chapter Seven, the coexistence of the claim of restitution and other rights of claim.CHAPTER ONE THE HISTORY OF UE. This chapter discusses the development of UE in civil-law system and the sources of UE in common-law system. UE originated from Rome Law, which regulates UE in individual cases, and no uniform UE system is established. In Rome...