[en] BILINGUAL INTRODUCTION TO SPANISH LAW FOR ERASMUS STUDENTS, Capítulo 1 "DERECHO ROMANO".PRESENTATION This book is the fruit and result of the Teaching Innovation Project 'Elaboration of a Spanish/English bilingual textbook of Introduction to Spanish Law and its potential uses and benefits', financed by the Secretariat of Teaching Innovation of the Vice-rectorate for Academic Affairs and Teaching Staff of the University of Granada. The Project had its origin in the suggestion by Prof. Miguel Olmedo Cardenete, Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Granada, to some members of his team to elaborate various teaching innovation projects related to our respective areas of responsibility. As Vice-dean for international relations of my faculty and taking into account that the University of Granada is the leader in Europe every year since many years ago (at least from 2004/2005) in the number of sent and hosted students in the framework of the Erasmus program, and that many Euro-pean universities offer courses —in some cases compulsory for international mo-bility students— of introduction to the law or of legal language of the country in question, I thought about the convenience, or rather the necessity that our faculty should do the same to promote and facilitate academic stays and studies for the more than one hundred International students we receive every year. Law students that come to our faculty from abroad have had no other choice until now but to follow the clases in the only language in which they are taught —Spanish, in contrast with many other law schools in Europe and elsewhere, of universities not precisely in English speaking countries, in which a considerable number of English-taught courses are offered. To the logical difficulty for these in-coming students to follow the law classes in a language that in most cases they don't know well, it must be added that the legal systems, institutions and elements do not fully coincide, not even between the countries of the same continental legal tradition of Civil Law (let alone the clearly different tradition of Common Law). This greatly hinders the performance of Erasmus students or students of any other international exchange program in many of the courses they take when they come to this faculty, since those courses in many cases presuppose a previous knowledge of basic issues of our legal system. To correct this situation the faculty of law started in 2013 a grant program for teachers to improve their level of English with the commitment from the benefi-ciaries of undertaking lecturing in that language. As a result of the first call for applications (in the second semester of 2015-2016 academic year the second one will be launched) this year 2015-2016 is the first in the history of our faculty in which English-taught undergraduate courses are offered (two groups in particu-lar: one of the compulsory course Human rights, equality and protection systems, delivered by the Department of Philosophy of Law; and another of the elective Administrative court procedure, responsibility of the Department of Administrative Law). The intention of the Dean's team is to keep extending the offer of English-taught courses. But the increase is slow and depends on the gradual awareness and willingness of our teaching staff, so that while that occurs (and also considering that many international students may wish to continue studying law in the lan-guage of their destination country —Spanish, in this case) it has been considered convenient to develop this project, whose main purpose is the elaboration of the materials necessary for the previous and autonomous training of law students coming from abroad, in order to allow them to follow the regular lectures in Spanish without great difficulty once they start their academic mobility, in virtually any Law School in Spain. The project has benefited from the collaboration of many professors (one from Translation, two from English Philology and the rest from Law), all of them from the University of Granada, two independent legal professionals, and one professional traslator-lawyer, also living and working in Granada. Most of the chapters have been translated into English by the authors themselves and revised afterwards by the professors of translation and English philology. I have to thank all of them for having made this publication possible, but my special thanks are due to translator and lawyer Bridgit McQue, who has revised the whole final text to check the accurateness of the English legal termi-nology. I must equally thank professors Juan López Martínez and José Manuel Pérez Lara, from the Financial and Taxation Law Departament of the University of Granada, for making it possible to have this book published by the prestigious publisher Tirant lo Blanch. In the acknowledgements section I can't forget to mention the Faculty of Law, whose Dean encouraged this work, not only with the initial suggestion to submit the project but also by co-financing the publication, as well as my colleagues in the Dean's team and in my Deparment of Administrative Law —headed by professor Mª Asunción Torres López— for their continuous support and understand-ing.

[es] Este libro es fruto y resultado del Proyecto de Innovación Docente "Elaboración de un Manual bilingüe español/inglés de Introducción al Derecho Español y sus posibles aplicaciones y utilidades", financiado por el Secretariado de Innovación Docente del Vicerrectorado de Ordenación Académica y Profesorado de la Uni-versidad de Granada. El Proyecto tiene su origen en la sugerencia del Prof. Dr. Miguel Olmedo Cardenete, Decano de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Granada, que hizo a algunos miembros de su equipo decanal para que elaborá-semos varios proyectos de innovación docente relacionados con nuestros respectivos ámbitos de competencia.Los estudiantes de Derecho que vienen a nuestra facultad del extranjero no han tenido hasta ahora más remedio que seguir las clases en el único idioma en el que se imparten: español, a diferencia de lo que ocurre en muchas facultades de Derecho europeas y de fuera de Europa, en universidades de países no precisamente anglófonos, en las que se oferta un considerable número de asignaturas impartidas en inglés. A la lógica dificultad que supone para estos alumnos in-coming el seguir las clases de Derecho en un idioma que en la mayoría de los casos no do-minan, hay que añadir el hecho de que los sistemas, instituciones y elementos ju-rídicos no coinciden plenamente, ni siquiera entre los países de la misma tradición jurídica continental de Civil Law (frente a la claramente diferente tradición del Common Law).