European Private Law: Contract
European Private Law is an emerging and dynamic subject. It concerns the gradual approximation and harmonisation of the national private laws of the European Union's Member States, one of the most fascinating contemporary developments in the law. The Europeanisation of private law has two dimensions. One is fairly imminent and 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. The other is more forward-looking and rather of a scholarly nature. It relates to a number of academic proposals for common European rules and principles in the area of private law, based on thorough comparative research. Thus European Private Law 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, constantly approaching particular problems from a European point of view as well as from the perspective of various national private laws, thus necessarily adopting a comparative approach. The course first considers fundamental questions relating to the desirability, the constitutional legitimacy and the feasibility of the harmonisation of Private Law in Europe. An overview of the existing state of European Private Law, the imminent developments and the long-term proposals by various groups of academics is provided. The main part of the course consists in the study of a limited number of specific substantive issues taken from one of the core areas of private law, the law of contract. These are studied, as far as possible, with reference to primary materials, ie legislation and case law, and are likely to include topics such as pre-contractual liability, formation of contract, third parties in contract, mistake, good faith, standard terms, supervening events, breach of contract and remedies. 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.
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 or even the most important European legal systems, but is rather of a more topical nature. The search is for – common or diverging – solutions to legal problems arising in all legal systems (including EU law and recent proposals for further harmonisation). These are looked at both from a rather technical point of view and with respect to the underlying principles so that a balance between ‘black letter’ law and general policy issues is struck. Participants will thus be in a position to evaluate the status quo of European contract law(s), the potential for further harmonisation and the methodological implications of this process. The principal objective of the course is to enable students to acquire knowledge and understanding in the area of European Private Law 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 and the ability to master a wide range of strongly heterogeneous sources – all of which are competences and skills of increasing importance in a Europe growing together.