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24 - The Law of Contract and Treaties

from Part IV - Grotius as a Legal Scholar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2021

By
Paolo Astorri
Edited by
Randall Lesaffer  and
Janne E. Nijman
Randall Lesaffer
Affiliation:
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Janne E. Nijman
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
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Summary

This chapter examines several elements of Grotius’s teachings on the laws governing promises, contracts, and treaties, as expounded in his De jure belli acpacis. Grotius distinguished between promises and contracts. A promise to transfer a property right is binding when the promisor expressed his intention with an external sign, and the promisee has accepted the promise. As the binding effect is based on the free will of the promisor, the so-called vices of the will (duress, fraud etc.) can invalidate the agreement.

Keywords

PromisesContractsTreatiesConsensualismEqualityJust priceMonopoliesMoral TheologyNatural Law, Grotius
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Hugo Grotius , pp. 513 - 534
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Augé, G., ‘Le contrat et l’évolution du consensualisme chez Grotius’, Archives de Philosophie du Droit 13 (1968) 99–114.Google Scholar
Decock, W., Theologians and Contract law: The Moral Transformation of the Ius Commune (ca. 1500–1650) (Leiden and Boston, 2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deroussin, D., Histoire du droit des obligations (Paris, 2012).Google Scholar
Diesselhorst, M., Die Lehre des Hugo Grotius vom Versprechern (Köln, 1959).Google Scholar
Dondorp, H., and Hallebeek, J., ‘Grotius’ doctrine on “adquisitio obligationis per alterum” and its roots in the legal past of Europe’, in Condorelli, O. (ed.), Panta rei. Studi dedicati a Manlio Bellomo (Rome, 2003), vol. 2, 205–44.Google Scholar
Gordley, J., The Philosophical Origins of Modern Contract Doctrine (Oxford, 1992).Google Scholar
Jørgensen, S., ‘Grotius’s doctrine of contract’, Scandinavian Studies in Law 13 (1969) 109–25, reprinted in Values and Law: Ideas, Principles and Rules (København, 1978), 83–101.Google Scholar
Zimmermann, R., The Law of Obligations: Roman Foundations of the Civilian Tradition (Oxford, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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