The "birth" of receivables

The double-sided civil law notion of obligation divides into créance on the active side and debt on the passive side. It encompasses claims pursued against a wide variety of debtors, whether arising on the basis of contract, tort, or statute. Debates on the date when an obligation might arise (for example, date of contract as contrasted with time of performance or moment of breach) rest on the assumption that an obligation comes into existence at one point in time, which mechanically triggers the same legal consequences for all kinds of obligation. This thesis discusses the appropriateness of the concept which has been used in traditional French theory to characterize that moment (the naissance or birth of an obligation), the soundness of the method of reasoning which has led to treating this concept as the cause or explanation of the rules governing an obligation at a given date, and the validity of the idea that an obligation can be considered to come into existence at one specific moment. It then suggests another perspective, based on identifying presumptive dates for different categories of obligations, but subject always to verification of relevance for the particular issue(s) that may flow from the putative existence of the obligation.