Constitutional aspects of European private law: freedoms, rights and social justice in the Draft Common Frame of Reference, report for the CoPECL project

This report analyses the academic DCFR in the light of freedoms, rights and social justice. It first investigates whether the DCFR takes the autonomy of equally strong parties as its starting point or rather incorporates elements of ‘social justice’. The evaluation takes place on the basis of five key elements of social justice, i.e. legitimacy, the protection of weaker parties, the ideology underlying rules of private law, the role of general clauses, and the principles and values underlying the DCFR. Subsequently, the report addresses the question to what extent the DCFR takes into account the European free movements (of goods, services, persons and capital) and what its relation is with European competition law. Finally, it looks into the potential impact of fundamental rights, laid down in national Constitutions and international treaties, on the application of the DCFR. The overall aim is to determine whether the future CFR, if it followed the present academic draft, would on principle comply with current European constitutional standards.