Description

Alongside general contract law, whose rules accord a high level of economic liberty to the parties, there is a plurality of contractual regimes that are more prescriptive and less committed to the notion of freedom of contract. In this talk, the speaker examines the structure of this plurality and ask, first, what sort of commitment to economic liberty it embodies (if at all) and, second, what principles of political morality could justify this structure.

In the first part of the paper, the speaker argues that the structure of contract law does not protect either the scope or strength of economic liberty in contracts. However, it does employ a defeasible presumption in favour of such liberty. In the second part, he considers which normative principle would best justify this presumption. He considers the adequacy of the traditional presumption in favour of liberty as a possible justification and reject sit as unhelpful for this purpose. Instead, he suggests and defends an alternative presumption in favour of a particular abstraction of the person.

About The Speaker

Arie Rosen is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland Faculty of Law and a co-director of the New Zealand Centre for Legal Theory. His interests span general jurisprudence, constitutional theory, and the philosophy of private law. His published work covers methodological questions in jurisprudence, the theory of authority, statutory interpretation, and the relations between the concept and the nature of law. His current research on democracy and contract law is funded by a Marsden Grant, awarded by the Royal Society of New Zealand.