Searching for Contract (Law) in Europe

While investigating ways to Justifying Contract in Europe, Martijn Hesselink leaves it to the interrogated theories to define the scope of its very inquiry – the reach and significance of contract itself. This leaves the question of what Hesselink sets out to justify quite open for the reader, who at the same time gets the distinctive idea that this delimitation has normative significance in the author’s own views. To the extent that we do, as a matter of justice, need to have contract law rules – then, these rules need to be just. The comment, thus, seeks to re-articulate Hesselink’s non-definition of (European) contract law, to try to delimit where we need such rules and test the boundaries of what rules we may in fact accept or even need as a matter of justice – what kind of rules we can, in Hesselink’s framework, ultimately set out to justify.