Carlo Francesco Gabba (April 14, 1835, in Lodi – February 18, 1920, in Turin) was an Italian jurist and professor at the University of Pisa who has received several awards and titles. His studies and legal constructions deeply influenced the law in several countries.
In 1897 he was police of Italian government at the International Congress in Brussels about protection of the industrial property and in 1899 advisor on diplomatic conflicts by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 1899 he was advisor on diplomatic conflicts to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affair
Elected senator in 1900, he was an ordinary member of the Standing Committee of the Superior Court of Justice and member of the Turin National Academy of Sciences.
In 1911, while he was an associate professor at the University of Pisa, he defended the name "promise of contract" to refer to prior commitment mutually agreed between the parties that celebrate a contract. This position was reflected immediately in the coming Brazilian Civil Code of 1916 and remained in the review of Brazilian Civil Code in 2002.
Gabba left behind the concept of legal principle acquired right, in his most famous book Teoria della retroattività delle leggi (Theory of retroactive legislation, Turin, 1891). For him, acquired right is "every right that:
1) is consequence of the fact suitable to produce it, under the law of the time in which he was held, although opportunity to assert it was not given prior to the performance of the new law regarding the same fact;
2) under the law under which there was the fact that where it originated, came from the outset to integrate the heritage of those who acquired it. "(a originally only patrimonial concept still mainly accepted)."