An Essay on ordinary law

This work offers a comprehensive study on the droit commun (approximately translated into general rules of law or ordinary law), a fundamental concept at the core of the theory and daily practice of French law. Contrary to traditional approaches involving the impression of a changing and variable concept (civil law, general theory, Roman law, European law, principles?), droit commun is a technical concept referring, for a given institution, to the legal rules whose scope of application is indefinite. This study also reveals the two distinct applications of droit commun; droit commun territorial (territorial general rules of law) and droit commun matériel (material general rules of law). The first application, droit commun territorial, although lesser known, is technically and historically primal. Droit commun territorial is specifically mentioned for in article 1393 of the French civil code (regarding the matrimonial property regimes), and in a fundamental principle identified by the French Constitutional Council in 2011. The second application, droit commun matériel, is better known but needs an overview. In particular, the section of the French civil code which contains articles 2333 and following (on the droit commun of pledging of corporeal movables), refers to it. These two applications of droit commun are the expressions of a summa divisio. Although both applications have similarities, they remain fundamentally different. The respective applications of droit commun do not refer to the same rules of law: rules where territorial scope of application is unlimited versus rules where material and personal scope of application is unlimited.