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1 results

  • 6 - Future Challenges for Contract Law

  • Catherine Mitchell, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    Vanishing Contract Law
    Published online:
    25 August 2022
    Print publication:
    01 September 2022, pp 146-174

  • Summary

    This chapter explores some of the current and future pressures on contract law that are likely to reinforce its formalist and commercialist tendencies. The first of these is the recasting of contract law as a commodity that should primarily serve the interests of commercial contractors (usually by upholding the terms of the contract) at the expense of doctrinal development. The second is the declining use of adjudication to resolve disputes, rooted in lack of support for litigation and the emphasis on non-adjudicative dispute resolution within courts themselves. The third factor is the increasing automation of contract processes, manifest in the development of ‘smart contracts’ and algorithmic contracting. These innovations are likely to require revision of the foundational understandings upon which contract law is built, notably around how contracts are created, by whom and for what purposes.