Kenny, Mel; Devenney, James --- "The Fallacy of the Common Core: Polycontextualism in Surety Protection – a ‘Hard Case’ in Harmonisation Discourse" [2012] ELECD 357; in Andenas, Mads; Andersen, Baasch Camilla (eds), "Theory and Practice of Harmonisation" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Theory and Practice of Harmonisation

Editor(s): Andenas, Mads; Andersen, Baasch Camilla

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849800013

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: The Fallacy of the Common Core: Polycontextualism in Surety Protection – a ‘Hard Case’ in Harmonisation Discourse

Author(s): Kenny, Mel; Devenney, James

Number of pages: 21

Extract:

13. The fallacy of the common core:
polycontextualism in surety
protection ­ a `hard case' in
harmonisation discourse
Mel Kenny* and James Devenney**

`Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows. Each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy.'
­ W. Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act 1, Scene iii, 109­110



I. INTRODUCTION
This chapter is located in the context of EU initiatives aimed at creating a single
market in financial services1 and the increasingly acrimonious debate on the future
of European Private Law.2 More specifically, this chapter focuses on the protection


* Reader in Commercial Law, School of Law, University of Leicester, UK.
** Chair in Commercial Law, School of Law, University of Exeter, UK. We are
grateful to the participants and organisers of the 2008 WG Hart Workshop (Institute of
Advanced Legal Studies, London).
1
See Kenny, M (2007), `Standing Surety in Europe: Common Core or Tower of
Babel', 70 Modern Law Review 175 at 177­9.
2
See, for example, Markesinis, B (1997), `Why a Code is Not the Best Way to Ad-
vance the Cause of European Legal Unity', 5 European Review Private Law 519; Legrand,
P (1997), `European Legal Systems are Not Converging', 45 International and Compara-
tive Law Quarterly 52; Legrand, P (1997), `Against a European Civil Code', 60 Modern
Law Review 44; Legrand, P (2003), `The Impossibility of Legal Transplants', 4 Maastricht
Journal of European and Comparative Law 111; Legrand, P (2006), `Antivonbar', 1 Jour-
nal of Contract Law 1; von Bar, C (2002), ` ...