Vanishing Contract Law: Common Law in the Age of Contracts

by Catherine Mitchell

Overview

English contract law provides the invisible framework that underpins and enables much contracting activity in society, yet the role of the law in policing many of our contracts now approaches vanishing point. The methods by which contracts come into existence, and notionally create binding obligations, have transformed over the past forty years. Consumers now enter into contracts through remote and automated processes on standard terms over which they have little control. This book explores the substantive weakening of the institution of contract law in a society heavily dependent on contracts. It considers significant areas of contracting activity that affect many people, but that escape serious and sustained legal scrutiny. An accessibly written and succinct account of contract law's past, present and future, it assesses the implications of a diminished contract law, and the possibilities, if any, for its revival.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009084901
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/01/2022
Series:	Law in Context
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Catherine Mitchell is a Reader in Private Law at the University of Birmingham. She has published widely on contract, and has been cited by the House of Lords, the Singapore Court of Appeal and by the Law Commissions of England and Scotland.

Table of Contents

1. Vanishing contract law; 2. Contract common law trends; 3. Contractualisation and the common law retreat; 4. Private ordering, regulation and contract law; 5. Contracts through the gaps; 6. Future challenges for contract law; 7. The possibility of common law revival; 8. Conclusion.