Comparative Contract Law in Europe

This course explores the law of contract comparatively, using as its focus English contract law and the contract laws of national jurisdictions in continental Europe, set against the backdrop of the approximation of the national private laws of the European Union’s Member States and attempts over the last two decades to harmonise contract law in Europe. The course involves a deep comparative study of contract law, and is aimed equally at students with a common law or a civil law background, and indeed from any jurisdiction, within or outside Europe.

The modern ‘Europeanisation’ of private law has two dimensions. The first is extremely relevant to legal practice. It concerns the implications of existing legislation and case-law emanating from the organs of the EU for national private laws of Member States. Within the UK, the understanding of the implications of EU law for English private law has a particular contemporary significance in light of the decision in the 2016 referendum that the UK should leave the EU. Although the full repercussions of that referendum are yet to be worked out, the broader question of the impact of EU law on national private laws remains. The second dimension of ‘Europeanisation’ is of a more scholarly nature. It relates to a number of academic proposals for common European rules and principles in the area of private law (such as the so-called ‘Draft Common Frame of Reference’), based on thorough comparative research and drawing on the common European legal heritage. European Private Law therefore combines issues from at least three branches of legal scholarship, ie European Law, (national) Private Law and Comparative Law.

The course attempts to combine these disciplines by approaching particular problems from a European point of view as well as from the angle of various national private laws, thus necessarily adopting a comparative approach. The lecture series accompanying the course seeks to elucidate the different facets of European Private Law in a broader perspective by examining its historical foundations in the ius commune (‘the past’), the development of national private law systems and their interaction with today’s EU law (‘the present’) and the political and constitutional prospects for further harmonisation (‘the future’). The main part of the course consists of eight seminars devoted to a number of specific substantive issues taken from the law of contract, one of the core areas of private law in Europe and beyond. These are studied, as far as possible, with reference to primary materials, ie legislation and case law. Examples from national legal systems will mainly be drawn from English, French and German law. If, however, another legal system offers an interesting and original solution, this will also be taken into account. All the required reading is in English.

This approach already indicates that the course does not aspire to cover the whole of contract law with all its, say, constitutional and procedural implications, in all European legal systems, but is necessarily of a more topical nature, with a focus on selected core jurisdictions. The search is for – common or diverging – solutions to legal problems arising in all legal systems (including EU law and various proposals for further harmonisation, and taking into account reforms within national systems, notably the reform of the German law of obligations in 2002 and the reform of the French law of contract in 2016). These are looked at both from a technical point of view and with respect to the underlying principles, so that a balance is struck between the discussion of ‘black letter’ law and general policy issues. Participants will thus be in a position to evaluate existing national laws, and European/EU contract law, the potential for further harmonisation and the methodological implications of such a process.

Learning outcomes: to enable students to acquire knowledge and understanding in the area of comparative contract law, in a European context, and to discuss and assess critically at an advanced level the legal and policy issues arising therefrom. Participants may expect to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of contract law, basic knowledge of the major European traditions in this area of the law, the ability to master a wide range of strongly heterogeneous sources, and an awareness of harmonisation projects at EU level.