로마법과 우리 민법상물에 관한 규정들에 대한 비교 연구

Water is essential for life. So many laws and acts around the world regulate that water is owned by public or by nation. In any case, no matter who it owns, water is for using by public. And the entitlement of using water inevitably has the attribute of the property right. Thus it is necessary for a society to have regulations for adjusting the water use between people, and then again, for adjusting the land ownership because water is wired with land. The Roman law, the historic model law of Korean Civil Code, therefore, had acknowledged and achieved harmony between the public character of water and the private character of water in land. In the private sector, the law took the structure of contractual easement relationship between the parties about the using the water and related land. In comparison, the Korean Civil Code does not express clearly either the public character nor the private character of water. It mainly depends on the social customs to solve the conflict of interests with relation to using the water and related land. In these days of importance of water, however, it would be proper to revise and put ground rules about the water on the Korean Civil Code.