Original Article
The Right to Justification of Contract
Martijn W. Hesselink,
Corresponding Author
Martijn W. Hesselink
Law Department, European University Institute, Villa Salviati, Via Bolognese 156, Florence, 50139 Italy
E-mail: martijn.hesselink@eui.eu
Search for more papers by this authorMartijn W. Hesselink,
Corresponding Author
Martijn W. Hesselink
Law Department, European University Institute, Villa Salviati, Via Bolognese 156, Florence, 50139 Italy
E-mail: martijn.hesselink@eui.eu
Search for more papers by this authorFirst published: 12 July 2020
Paper presented at the Law and Justice across Borders workshop at the University of Amsterdam, the law faculty seminar at the European University Institute in Florence, and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Tel-Aviv University. I am most grateful to Nik de Boer, Hanoch Dagan, Iris van Domselaar, Rainer Forst, Neha Jain, Mirthe Jiwa, Yifat Naftali, and Lyn Tjon Soei Len for their valuable comments.
Abstract
This paper defends a right to the justification of contract, with reciprocal and general reasons, and explores its main implications for the law of contract and its theory. It argues that the leading essentialist and other monist contract theories, offering blueprints for an ideal contract law based on the alleged ultimate value or essential characteristic of contract law, cannot justify the basic structure of contract law. Instead, it argues, a critical discourse theory of contract can contribute to the realisation of the right to justification of contract by exposing patterns of contractual injustice, in particular exploitation and domination by contract, that contract law can and should prevent.
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