The ongoing debate on the harmonization of European contract law has metamorphosed into an important recognition: that none of the existing national systems of contract law, even the most ‘modern’, have been able to keep pace with the extensive and radical changes in the world which contract law must reflect. The 19 outstanding contributors to this deeply insightful book concur in envisaging a fundamentally new systematic concept of contract law which, 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 organized 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.
• 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 that might serve as a basis for Europe-wide and perhaps even worldwide discussion.

Grundmann / Schauer (eds.)
The Architecture of European Codes and Contract Law
den Haag (Kluwer) 2006
ISBN 90-411-2530-2

General clauses or standards (Generalklauseln, clauses generales) are legal rules which are not precisely formulated, terms and concepts which in fact do not even have a clear core. They are often applied in varying degrees in various legal systems to a rather wide range of contract cases when certain issues arise issues such as abuse of rights, unfairness, good faith, fairness of duty or loyalty or honesty, duty of care, and other such contract terms not lending themselves readily to clear or permanent definition. Here for the first time is a systematic discussion of this kind of rule in the evolving and dynamic context of European contract law. A collection of twelve insightful essays by leading European law authorities, the book is based on a conference organized jointly by the Society of European Contract Law (SECOLA) and l association Henri Capitant, held in the `grande salle of the French Supreme Court in Paris in 2005. The subject is approached along three distinct but interconnected avenues:
• comparative contract law, in which the different models to be found among Member States particularly the Germanic, French, and English common law systems are explored with an eye to differences and common ground;
• EC contract law, in which the general clause approach has tended to focus on labour law and consumer law, and in which the European Court of Justice more and more assumes the final say; and
• the European codification dimension, in which a potential instrument on the European level would compete with national laws and develop closely with them.
The authors demonstrate that a focus on general clauses in contract law, embracing as it does a wide range of types of contracts, helps enormously with the necessary integration of legal scholarship and economic approaches, and of legal science and legal practice in the field. Numerous analytic references to relevant cases and EC Directives give a practical impetus to the far-reaching but immediately applicable theory presented in this important book. As European contract law continues to develop rapidly, this seminal contribution is sure to increase in value and usefulness.

Grundmann / Mazeaud (eds.)
General Clauses and Standards In European Contract Law. Comparative Law, EC Law and Contract Law Codification
den Haag (Kluwer) 2006
ISBN 90-411-2432-2