The Architecture of European Codes and Contract Law

The nineteen outstanding contributors to this deeply insightful book concur in
envisioning a fundamentally new systematic concept of contract law that, while
preserving the essential 'architecture' of the existing European codes, would
nonetheless find cogent ways to integrate such modern developments as mass
transactions, chains and networks of contracts, regulation of markets and
contracts to protect consumers, and service and long-term contracts into an
optional European code.

The book is organised along three major avenues:

the systematic arrangement of a contract law code - how it deals with core
questions of formation and performance or breach of contract, such as mistake
and misrepresentation, standard contract terms, and remedies in the case of
breach of contract;

the apparent necessity to merge consumer contract law (i.e. such issues as
product safety and liability, warranties, and consumer debt and insolvency)
with traditional core contract law concepts; and

the importance to substantive contract law of the pre-contractual phase, in
which information duties are becoming steadily more paramount.

The authors perspectives cover a wide range of jurisdictions, including new EU
Member States. The book's commitment to an integration of comparative law, EC
law, and the debate on European codification offers practitioners and
academics fertile ground for the development of a new model of contract law
that is more than a common denominator of what has been in force so far. This
model may serve as a basis for Europe-wide and perhaps even worldwide
discussion.