The future of contract law: Three conversations at the Cape

Acta Juridica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 3-36
Author(s):  
R Brownsword
Keyword(s):  
Contract Law ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Future ◽  
Regulatory Approach ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
Consumer Contracts ◽  
The One ◽  
New Phenomena

This contribution considers the future of the English law of contract in the form of three conversations that are alert to the disruptive impact of technologies on both the content of legal rules and the way that lawyers think – and indeed on the kind of conversations that lawyers have with one another. The first conversation is concerned with ‘coherence’ in contract law, with the application of general principles to novel fact situations and to new phenomena, with the smoothing of tensions within the law, and with the internal integrity of legal doctrine. The second conversation focuses on a tension between, on the one hand, what may be called a traditional private law ‘coherentist’ concern for doctrinal integrity and the primacy of principle over policy and, on the other hand, a more ‘regulatory’ approach to contracts, especially to consumer contracts, in which policy and instrumental rationality prevail. The third conversation focuses on the use of emerging transactional technologies (such as blockchain-supported smart contracts and AI) that have the potential to displace the rules and principles of contract law. Instead of legal code governing transactions, might we find that technological coding does all the work, making, performing and enforcing ‘contracts’? Each conversation suggests a different future for contract law. The first conversation suggests that contract law will have difficulty in living up to the private law ideal of coherence; the second suggests that coherentism will struggle to survive as it is challenged by an increasingly regulatory approach to the governance of transactions; and the third suggests that, in a world of smart transactional technologies, there is a serious question mark about the relevance of contract law as a body of rules that governs transactions.

scholarly journals Characteristics of modern European contract law

Pravovedenie ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-221
Author(s):  
Reiner Schulze ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Contract Law ◽  
Digital Content ◽  
Property Law ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Digital Products ◽  
European Contract ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
Digital Services ◽  
The One ◽  
European Contract Law

European contract law has recently entered a new phase in its development as a result of the introduction of new legislation responding to the challenges posed by digitalization and, in particular, the supply of digital content and digital services. Whereas the new legislation contains several characteristics which reflect a continuity of concepts already well-established in European contract law, several innovations have been necessary in order to take account of the specific features of these digital products and the manner in which they are supplied. The legislative responses will play a pivotal role not only in consumer protection but for European contract law. This article will focus in particular on two new “twin” directives: Directive 2019/770 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services and Directive 2019/771 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the sale of goods. In examining the core features of these two Directives, this article will consider how their new and innovative characteristics which respond to the challenges of digitalization can contribute towards a modern European contract law. These new approaches in European legislation clearly show that the further development of contract law is facing challenges that go beyond this area of law. The modernization of contract law therefore raises questions that must ultimately be directed at clarifying the overarching features of European private law as a whole. Finally, the relationship between the law of obligations, on the one hand, and property law or intellectual property law, on the other, and possibly a new definition of the boundaries and interaction between these areas, can be considered if contract law recognizes data as an asset, but it will not be able to guarantee sufficient protection of these assets with its instruments alone. Embedding the new concepts, principles and rules in the field of contract law in the development of private law as a whole, in line with the changes in the “digital age”, will therefore remain a major task for legislation and legal doctrine in the EU and beyond.

Alkohol im Tank – Bio-Kraftstoffe und die Grenzen moderner Mobilität

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (136) ◽  
pp. 455-468
Author(s):  
Hartwig Berger
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
The Future ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Food Market ◽  
The One ◽  
The Third World

The article discusses the future of mobility in the light of energy resources. Fossil fuel will not be available for a long time - not to mention its growing environmental and political conflicts. In analysing the potential of biofuel it is argued that the high demands of modern mobility can hardly be fulfilled in the future. Furthermore, the change into using biofuel will probably lead to increasing conflicts between the fuel market and the food market, as well as to conflicts with regional agricultural networks in the third world. Petrol imperialism might be replaced by bio imperialism. Therefore, mobility on a solar base pursues a double strategy of raising efficiency on the one hand and strongly reducing mobility itself on the other.

Technology Scouting and Inventions Patenting With Impact on the Agrifood Future

2019 ◽  
pp. 347-366
Author(s):  
Andreea Paul
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Innovation ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Future ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The One ◽  
Technology Scouting ◽  
Future Business ◽  
Technology Trends

This chapter is the sketch of a possible pattern of the future world in which any kind of business will be developed in a completely new human, technological, agricultural, and commercial context, heavily and quickly changed from the one we live in now. The first objective of this chapter is to scout for the mega-technology trends that will reshape completely the future business and jobs, focusing on the agrifood industry. The second objective is to tackle the main challenges to patent inventions in terms of costs and timing in Romania, relative to other countries, and raise pragmatic recommendations. The third objective is to describe the institutional innovation called INACO (the Initiative for Competitiveness), a think-tank dedicated to tackle the challenges and opportunities of the future economy and how can a country such as Romania stay competitive in a more and more competitive world.

The One Hundred Days

2021 ◽  
pp. 336-356
Author(s):  
Peter Fritzsche
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The Third ◽  
Great Achievement ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
The One ◽  
The New Deal

This chapter studies how the transformations which occurred in less than “one hundred days” in Germany evoked the original template for the one hundred days: Napoleon Bonaparte's return from Elba and the reestablishment of the empire until his abdication in the wake of Waterloo in 1815. Each of the hundred days—Napoleon's, Franklin D. Roosevelt's, and Adolf Hitler's—recharged history. The one hundred days consolidating the New Deal and the Nazi seizure of power gave new shape to the future in the extraordinary year of 1933. Ultimately, the great achievement of the Third Reich was getting Germans to see themselves as the Nazis did: as an imperiled people who had created for themselves a new lease on collective life. Not everyone agreed with the Nazis on every point, but most adjusted to National Socialism by interpreting it in their own way, adhering to old ideas by pursuing them in new forms. As a result, more and more Germans had accepted the Third Reich. This reassembly closed off any consideration of returning to the democratic governments of the Weimar Republic; it was neither recognized as a possibility nor desired.

Intentions Pessimism

2021 ◽  
pp. 21-43
Author(s):  
Sebastian Rosato
Keyword(s):  
Great Powers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Future ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
The One

This chapter outlines a theory called intentions pessimism. It begins by describing the information problems that confront states seeking to divine each other’s intentions. The first problem is that it is particularly difficult for a great power to access firsthand information about another state’s current intentions, that state’s actual ideas about how it intends to behave. The second problem is that although great powers can acquire information about each other’s declarations, interests, and actions, all of which are related to its intentions, this secondhand information is unreliable, which is to say that it is consistent with both benign and malign intent. The third problem is that states cannot access firsthand information about each other’s future intentions, while secondhand information on the matter is especially unreliable. The chapter then argues that given the inextricable link between information, on the one hand, and certainty and uncertainty on the other, these problems of access, reliability, and the future virtually preclude great powers from being confident that their peers have benign intentions, or more simply, from trusting them. Indeed, they typically cause states to be acutely uncertain about each other’s intentions. The chapter concludes by exploring the effects of uncertainty on great power politics.

Transplanting Irrationality from Public to Private Law: Braganza v BP Shipping Ltd

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Himsworth
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Public Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Private Law ◽  
The One ◽  
Uk Supreme Court ◽  
The Uk ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Discretionary Powers

For many years, similarities have been noticed between the motivations for, and the methods of, controlling the exercise of discretionary powers on the one hand, in public law and, on the other hand, in contract law. There has, however, been much disagreement about how far the two processes should aligned, and whether the grounds of review in public law should be extended into the contractual domain. In Braganza v BP Shipping Ltd [2015] UKSC 17, the UK Supreme Court sought a high degree of alignment through the adoption, in a contractual dispute, of public law standards of reasonableness. This article offers a critique of the Court's arguments in the case and its consequences for contract law.

scholarly journals COSMETOLOGINYAAND ADVOKATESSA: THE FUTURE OR THE REALITY OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE?

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-186
Author(s):  
Daria S. Pavlova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Russian Language ◽  
Pilot Experiment ◽  
The Third ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
The Future ◽  
The One ◽  
The Russian Language ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon ◽  
Modern Russian

The article is devoted to feminitives as a linguistic phenomenon studied by gender linguistics. A large number of new feminitives in modern Russian language denotes the relevance of specific names for females, despite the tendency to use masculine words as general words in official speech. The most frequent feminitives are the names of female persons by profession or occupation. The results of a pilot experiment aimed at detecting the use of feminitives when referring to women of certain professions are presented. All data is divided into several groups. The first group consists of professions with a more frequent use of feminitives than names in the masculine grammatical gender.The second group is the one where some of the feminitives are found in dictionaries labeled “colloquial”. The third group includes cases when feminitives exist, but the respondents formed them in a different way using frequency derivational models.

scholarly journals Offences against Internationally Protected Persons: Problems of International Legal Qualification

2021 ◽  
pp. 61-77
Author(s):  
V. E. Tarabrin ◽  
R. A. Kantur
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Geneva Convention ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
The Status ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
The One

INTRODUCTION. The article examines various aspects of the international legal qualification of offences committed against internationally protected persons. The analysis of different elements of corpus delicti was laid at the heart of the study: namely, those of actus reus (whether the offence was perpetrate in the situation of an armed conflict), mens rea (whether the perpetrator was moved by a special intent, particularly the terrorist dolus specialis), and the legal status of a perpetrator (whether he or she was a state agent).MATERIALS AND METHODS. The materials of the study encompass international conventions, rules and principles of customary international law, case law of international courts and tribunals and international legal doctrine. The paper uses the comparative method and those of analysis and synthesis.  RESEARCH RESULTS. The key result of the study consists in the assumption that offences against internationally protected persons can be considered as either a conventional crime within the meaning of the 1973 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, including Diplomatic Agents (including, if a terrorist dolus specialis is established, as a crime of terrorism), or (in case of armed conflict) a violation of laws and customs of war, for this category of persons falls within the definition of protected persons by implication of Article 4 of the 1949 IV Geneva Convention, which gives grounds for the application of Article 146 of the 1949 IV Geneva Convention for purposes of the their criminal prosecution.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. Given the result of the study, it is states that the following test can be applied for purposes of international legal qualification of offences against internationally protected persons: first, it is necessary to establish whether the offence of committed in a situation of armed conflict; second, it is highly important to enquire about the intent of the delinquent. If there is a terrorist dolus specialis, the offence can be qualified as terrorism-related. Moreover, it is necessary to establish the status of the delinquent and whether the one is a state agent or a private person, or, even if the person is a state agent, whether the one is a person acting sua sponte; additionally, the status of a delinquent and its relation with the belligerent state in regard to the situation of armed conflict is also significant for the qualification of respective offences in light of international law

scholarly journals Who is the oldest in Vojvodina?

2006 ◽  
pp. 281-292
Author(s):  
Jovan Plavsa ◽  
Milka Bubalo-Zivkovic
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Great Problem ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One

For only eight decades (from 1921 to 2002), the population of Vojvodina got older for even ten years, which represents a great problem for the future of the population in this region. In the world, the average age of the population at the beginning of the 21st century is 27,6 years, showing that it is younger than the population in Vojvodina was at the beginning of the third decade of the 20th century. However, all population in Vojvodina does not get old at the same speed. Observing specific ethnic groups, the authors of this paper established differences related to the average age. There is a conclusion that the youngest population is the one which also has greater birthrates, and that is the case with the Goranci and the Roma. In addition to birthrate, the average age is also influenced by the number of the population itself, so the greater average age appears in these ethnic groups which are less numerous. On the basis of the spread of some ethnic groups in Vojvodina, the paper also established the difference in the average age of the population related to some regional units.

scholarly journals A Profusion of Chancery Reform

2004 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 609-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Oldham
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Good Measure ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
Legal Jurisdiction ◽  
The One ◽  
Proper Subject

The refrain that law and equity cannot peaceably cohabit the same court is familiar and persistent. In his 1790 treatise on contracts, Joseph Powell protested that blending law and equity was “subversive of first principles.” He claimed, “That a right in itself purely legal cannot be the proper subject of discussion in a jurisdiction purely equitable, and that a right purely equitable, cannot be the proper subject of a purely legal jurisdiction, are axioms that cannot be denied,” adding for good measure: “It is a proposition as self-evident as that black is not red, or white black.” Almost two centuries later, in a provocative 1974 essay called The Death of Contract, Grant Gilmore asserted that the legal doctrine of consideration in contract law and the equitable doctrine of promissory estoppel were like “matter and anti-matter,” and “The one thing that is clear is that these two contradictory propositions cannot live comfortably together: in the end one must swallow the other up.”

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