-
Details
Promoting a ‘learning-by-doing’ approach to comparative contract law and comparative methodology, this second edition of Comparative Contract Law updates the first true student reader on the subject. It brings together extracts from legislation and court practice in a way that lets students experience comparative law in action, presenting a unique guide to European and International contract law.
This updated second edition provides:
- an international perspective on highly topical, real-life issues of contract law
- materials from some 30 jurisdictions in both their original languages, and in excellent translations
- the chance for students to solve scenarios according to the laws of different jurisdictions and compare and evaluate the solutions and approaches they identify
- the opportunity for students to engage with a broad array of case material and to develop their skills as comparative lawyers.
Essential reading for all students, practitioners, and scholars of comparative contract law and methodology, this second edition remains a vital practical guide for those seeking to familiarise themselves with real-world materials and to better understand the diverse approaches to modern contract law.
-
Preface
Part A Introduction
1. Contract Law in the 21st century - the purpose of this book
2. A case-oriented and multilateral approach to the teaching, studying and learning of comparative law - the approach used in this book
3. Is it legitimate and beneficial for judges to compare?
4. An introduction to the Principles of Contract Law: the needs to which they respond and the purposes for which they are designed
I. Formation of contracts
5. Case study 1: Offer or invitation to treat (Invtio ad offerendum)
6. Case study 2: Conditions for the formation of a contract – agreement or more? (cause and consideration)
7. Case study 3: Obligation to maintain an offer or freedom to revoke it
8. Case study 4: Modification of contracts – the free will of the parties or limits on the freedom to contract (consideration revisited)
9. Case study 5: The battle of forms
II. Performance of contracts
10. Case study 6: Right to receive performance of a contract or just a right to receive damages
11. Case study 7: Damages and the role of the fault of the seller in the event of delivery of goods not in conformity with the contract
12. Case study 8: Change of circumstances
13. Case study 9: Contracts and the transfer of ownership in movable property
III. The law applicable to cross-border contracts and the future of European contract law
14. Case study 10: The law applicable to cross-border contracts (introduction)
15. Case study 11: The future of European contract law
Index
-
THOMAS KADNER GRAZIANO is Professor in the Department of International Private Law at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He has taught in 2007/08 as Visiting Professor at the University of Exeter, UK, and is a Fellow of the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law (ECTIL) in Vienna. His research interests include European and international private law, comparative law, German, US and English law, civil process, and environmental law.
-
"If anyone still needs convincing that comparative private law is an exercise worth doing, they need look no further than this excellent and ground-breaking book. It is an admirable addition to any academic or student library, for three reasons.
First, it is based on what law does about actual claims. In it you will find carefully-chosen scenarios that worry lawyers and divide different jurisdictions; commentary on those situations; impeccably-chosen literature; and, most importantly, judgments of courts in any number of European jurisdictions (translated where necessary).
Secondly, like all the best books it is written with a purpose: here the purpose of looking at the whole subject of comparative private law against the background of unification of private law in and beyond Europe.
Thirdly and most importantly, it skilfully avoids the 'stamp-collecting' approach to comparative law and the increasingly unproductive practice of trying to shoehorn particular jurisdictions into more and more arbitrary legal 'families.' What matters to the first-rate comparatist is not so much taxonomy or the fact that jurisdictions differ, but why they differ, and what considerations should inform any choice between the various solutions on offer.
In short, this is one of the most stimulating introductions to comparative law in recent years. I have no hesitation whatever in commending it warmly to students and teachers alike."
- Andrew Tettenborn, Bracton Professor of Law, University of Exeter
