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by Martijn W. Hesselink (Author)
This title explores the normative foundations of European contract law. It addresses fundamental political questions on contract law in Europe from the perspective of leading contemporary political theories. Does the law of contract need a democratic basis? To what extent should it be Europeanised? What justifies the binding force of contract and the main remedies for breach? When should weaker parties be protected? Should market transactions be considered legally void when they are immoral? Which rules of contract law should the parties be free to opt out of? Adopting a critical lens, this book interrogates utilitarian, liberal-egalitarian, libertarian, communitarian, civic republican, and discourse-theoretical political philosophies and analyses the answers they provide to these questions. It also situates these theoretical debates within the context of the political landscape of European contract law and the divergent views expressed by lawmakers, legal academics, and other stakeholders.
This work moves beyond the acquis positivism, market reductionism, and private law essentialism that tend to dominate these conversations and foregrounds normative complexity. It explores the principles and values behind various arguments used in the debates on European contract law and its future to highlight the normative stakes involved in the practical question of what we, as a society, should do about contract law in Europe. In so doing, it opens up democratic space for the consideration of alternative futures for contract law in the European Union, and for better justifications for those parts of the EU contract law acquis we wish to retain.Author Biography
Martijn W Hesselink has been Professor of Transnational Law and Theory at the European University Institute in Florence since 2019. Prior to joining the EUI, he was Professor of European Private Law at the University of Amsterdam, where he was also the founding Director of the Centre for the Study of European Contract Law. Professor Hesselink is an editor of the European Review of Contract Law. He served as a member of the European Commission's expert group on European contract law and presented several reports on matters of contract and consumer law for the European Parliament. He has published on a variety of subjects in the fields of European private law and private law theory.
