Private law and the Economic Constitution

Hugh Collins

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511620010.006

IV - Private law and the Economic Constitution

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2010

Hugh Collins

Show author details

Hugh Collins: Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science

Book contents

Get access

Summary

At the end of the Cold War, in about 1989, the sharp and mutually reinforcing clash between capitalism and communism that had divided Europe for half a century lost its magnetic force on politics. Presented with a choice over the type of social and political order, citizens of former Eastern bloc countries opted to join the European club. They believed that the European Community offered both liberal democratic political institutions and a social model that controlled the market economy for the purpose of general welfare. Most importantly, the Community seemed to have found a way to avoid the damaging extremes of either unrestrained market capitalism or totalitarian communism.

Yet the European Community, as it had developed till then, could not fulfil that promise of setting a framework of laws and institutions that would secure a European social democratic model. In Europe's multi-level system of government, Member States retained control over crucial elements in this model. It was national constitutions that sustained and guaranteed liberal democracy. Even for the international protection of human rights, it was a different organisation, the Council of Europe, and not the European Community, which provided legal guarantees. Similarly, national laws and welfare systems performed the bulk of the tasks of securing social justice and social inclusion for citizens with only marginal inputs from the European Community such as regional support funds.

Type: Chapter
Information: The European Civil Code
The Way Forward
, pp. 91 - 123

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620010.006 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Maduro, M. P., We the Court: The European Court of Justice and the European Economic Constitution (Oxford: Hart, 1998).Google Scholar

Alston, P. (ed.), The EU and Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) 449.

Davies, P., ‘Market Integration and Social Policy in the Court of Justice’ (1995) 24 Industrial Law Journal51CrossRef Google Scholar

Somma, A., ‘Social Justice and the Market in European Contract Law’ (2006) 2 European Review of Contract Law181.CrossRef Google Scholar

Hobbes, T., Leviathan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955) (first published 1651) 89–90Google Scholar

Hart, H. L. A., The Concept of Law, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 196–197Google Scholar

Supiot, A., ‘The Dogmatic Foundations of the Market’ (2000) 29 Industrial Law Journal321CrossRef Google Scholar

Basedow, J., ‘A Common Contract Law for a Common Market’ (1996) 33 Common Market Law Review1169, 1179Google Scholar

Collins, H., Regulating Contracts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), chapter 5Google Scholar

Ashiagbor, D., ‘Economic and Social Rights in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights’ (2004) (1) European Human Rights Law Review62Google Scholar

Hesselink, M. W. (ed.), The Politics of a European Civil Code (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2006) 125.

Simpson, A. W. B. (ed.), Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence, 2nd series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973)

Hale, R. L., ‘Bargaining, Duress, and Economic Liberty’ (1943) 43 Columbia Law Review603CrossRef Google Scholar

Kronman, A. T., ‘Contract Law and Distributive Justice’ (1980) 89 Yale Law Journal472CrossRef Google Scholar

Dagan, H., ‘The Distributive Foundation of Corrective Justice’ (1999) 98 Michigan Law Review138CrossRef Google Scholar

Keren-Paz, T., ‘An Inquiry into the Merits of Redistribution through Tort Law: Rejecting the Claim of Randomness’ (2003) 16 Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence91CrossRef Google Scholar

Kennedy, D., ‘The Political Stakes in “Merely Technical” Issues of Contract Law’ (2001) 9 European Review of Private Law7Google Scholar

Graber, C.Beat and Teubner, G., ‘Art and Money: Constitutional Rights in the Private Sphere’ (1998) 18 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies61CrossRef Google Scholar

Gerstenberg, O., ‘Private Law and the New European Constitutional Settlement’ (2004) 10 European Law Journal766CrossRef Google Scholar

Hesselink, M. J., The New European Private Law (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2002) 184 ffGoogle Scholar

Cherednychenko, O., ‘The Constitutionalization of Contract Law: Something New Under the Sun?’ (2004) 8(1) Electronic Journal of Comparative Law, www//.ejcl.org/. See chapter IX belowGoogle Scholar

Black, J., ‘Decentring Regulation: Understanding the Role of Regulation and Self-Regulation in a Post-regulating World’ (2001) 54 Current Legal Problems 103, 128–144CrossRef Google Scholar

Parker, C., Scott, C., Lacey, N. and Braithwaite, J. (eds.), Regulating Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 33–34CrossRef

Weber, M., Economy and Society, Roth, G. and Wittich, C. (eds.) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968) vol. II, 880–895Google Scholar

Wieacker, F., A History of Private Law in Europe, trans. Weir, T. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995)Google Scholar

Teubner, G. (ed.), Dilemmas of Law in the Welfare State (New York and Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988) 280

Duguit, L., Le droit social, le droit individuel et la transformation de l'état (Paris: Alcan, 1908)Google Scholar

Gurvitch, G., L'idée du droit social (Paris: Sirey, 1932)Google Scholar

Teubner, G. (ed.), Dilemmas of Law in the Welfare State (New York and Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988) 40

Breyer, S., Regulation and Its Reform (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984)Google Scholar

Sunstein, C., ‘Paradoxes of the Regulatory State’ (1990) 57 University of Chicago Law Review407CrossRef Google Scholar

Wilhelmmson, T., Paunio, E. and Pohjolainen, A. (eds.), Private Law and the Many Cultures of Europe (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2007) 177, 187

Schmid, C. U., ‘The Instrumentalist Conception of the acquis communautaire in Consumer Law and its Implications on a European Contract Law Code’ (2005) 1 European Review of Contract Law 211, 222CrossRef Google Scholar

Morijn, J., ‘Balancing Fundamental Rights and Common Market Freedoms in Union Law: Schmidberger and Omega in the Light of the European Constitution’ (2006) 12 European Law Journal15CrossRef Google Scholar

Giubboni, S., Social Rights and Market Freedom in the European Constitution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRef Google Scholar

Davies, A. C. L., ‘The Right to Strike Versus Freedom of Establishment in EC Law: The Battle Commences’ (2006) 35(1) Industrial Law Journal75CrossRef Google Scholar

Book contents

IV - Private law and the Economic Constitution

Summary

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive