CLT Seminar: “The Power to Contract and the Quid Pro Quo ‘Straitjacket’: (Re)Conceptualising Obligation” by Dr Irina Sakharova, Durham University

In the seminar “The Power to Contract and the Quid Pro Quo ‘Straitjacket’: (Re)Conceptualising Obligation” held on 22nd September 2025, Dr Irina Sakharova of Durham University reconsiders the nature of contractual obligation through the lens of moral and legal philosophy. Traditional theories conceptualise obligation as an asymmetric relation between a duty-bearer and a right-holder, where the right-holder possesses the authority to release the duty-bearer from their obligation. Sakharova interrogates this entrenched model of correlativity and challenges the assumption that obligations are purely defined by rights and reciprocal exchanges. Drawing from a richer account of contractual relations, she explores how each party’s unilateral power to release the other from duties reveals limitations in the conventional quid pro quo framework.

Through this analysis, Sakharova highlights that contractual relations are not merely transactional but are underpinned by deeper structures of mutual recognition and normative authority. By questioning the idea that reciprocity exhausts the meaning of obligation, she exposes flaws in dominant models that overlook how promises and voluntary undertakings themselves generate moral and legal significance. Ultimately, Sakharova’s argument invites a reconceptualisation of contract theory—one that sees obligation not as a constraint within the “straitjacket” of exchange, but as a dynamic and relational practice of mutual empowerment embedded in the fabric of legal and moral life.