Contract Law: Themes for the Twenty-First Century / Edition 2

by Roger Brownsword

Overview

In this unique volume, Roger Brownsword provides a thoughtful overview of the principal themes of the law of contract. He explores the context of the recent development of contract law, and considers the many changes the law has undergone given the ever-evolving nature of English law. This accessible text brings Brownsword's expert commentary to a wider readership, and has been fully updated and revised to include recent issues and cases, including the Europeanization of contract law and the Great Peace Shipping case.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199287611
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/24/2006
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	332
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 6.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Roger Brownsword LLB, Barrister, Professor of Law at Kings College London, Honorary Professor in Law, University of Sheffield

Table of Contents

	Preface	v
	Table of statutes	xiii
	Table of statutory instruments	xv
	Table of cases	xvii
Chapter 1	The Nature of Contract	1
	Definition	1
	Agreement, exchange, and promise as essential definitions of contract	2
	Promise as a necessary condition	5
	Promise as a sufficient condition	8
	Synthesis	11
	Is the definitional question merely academic?	12
	The essential ethic of contract	15
	The function of contract law	22
	The classification of contracts and contractors	27
Chapter 2	Freedom of Contract	33
	The classical law of contract	33
	Freedom of contract	37
	The decline of freedom of contract	44
	The coherence of freedom of contract	52
	Synthesis	55
Chapter 3	Inequality of Bargaining Power	57
	Inequality of bargaining power: from the classical to the modern view	57
	Relative bargaining strength and inequality of bargaining power	62
	Rejection of a general doctrine of inequality of bargaining power	70
	Correcting bargaining inequality: between collapse and reconstruction	76
Chapter 4	Reasonableness	79
	Reasonableness: four steps from the classical to the modern law	79
	Reasonableness as a supplementary principle	84
	Reasonableness as a limiting principle	91
Chapter 5	Good Faith	97
	A general principle of good faith	97
	The sceptical view	100
	Neutrality and scepticism	105
	Against scepticism	108
	Three models of good faith	115
	Good faith and reasonableness	120
Chapter 6	The Tendency of the Modern Law	123
	The ideologies of contract	123
	Static and dynamic market-individualism contrasted	125
	Case law indications	131
	Dynamic market-individualism as the ruling ideology	139
	Beyond dynamic market-individualism	141
Chapter 7	The Globalisation of Contract Law	145
	The phenomenon of globalisation	145
	The Lando Commission	147
	Harmonisation within the European Union	149
	Convergence within the common law world	154
	An international law of contract: esperanto or lingua franca?	159
Chapter 8	The Interfaces of Contract Law	163
	Contract in the context of domestic law	163
	The common law of obligations	164
	Background (fixed) obligations and contractual obligations	165
	Difficulties at the interface between contract and negligence	167
	Disputes between contracting parties	167
	Disputes between a contracting party plaintiff and a non-contracting third-party defendant	177
	Disputes between a non-contracting third-party plaintiff and a contracting party defendant	185
	An intelligible mosaic?	194
	Contract and public law	197
	Where the private contractor claims that contract governs	199
	Where the public contractor claims that contract governs	205
	Synthesis	207
Chapter 9	The Rationality of Contract Law	209
	The idea of rationality in the law	209
	Formal rationality	210
	Instrumental rationality	215
	Substantive rationality	221
	Index	229