The transformation of private law
Hans-W. Micklitz/Yane Svetiev/Guido Comparato
First Semester 2014
This short seminar will explore key transformative influences on private law.
For the purposes of the seminar we will focus principally on private law
understood as the general law that facilitates and governs economic
transactions. Private law traditionally encoded notions of private autonomy
and over the course of the 20th century was also subjected to legislative
interventions aimed at reinforcing social justice. Does this traditional notion of
national private law have a future in light of the set of transformative influences
discussed in the seminar? In studying the process of transformation we will
focus on five principal topics: (1) the transformation of the state; (2) the process
of economisation through economic globalisation; (3) the role of technology; (4)
new forms of social organisation; (5) the relationship of private law to public
law. The seminar will involve in depth reading of texts and seminar discussion,
while for some sessions guest speakers will also be invited to join our
discussion.
Syllabus and Reading List
Week 1 (November 3): Transformation of the state and the market state
Required readings:
Hans-W. Micklitz and Dennis Patterson, ‘From the Nation State to the Market:
The Evolution of EU Private Law’, EUI Working Paper, LAW 2012/15,
available at
http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/22415/LAW_2012_15_ERPL_
02.pdf?sequence=1
Roland Axtmann, ‘The State of the State: the Model of the Modern State and
its Contemporary Transformation’ International Political Science Review 25: 325279 (2004)
Sabine Frerichs and Teemu Juutilainen ‘Rome Under Seven Hills? An
Archeology of European Private Law’ University of Helsinki, Legal Studies
Research Paper Series, Paper No 32, 2014, available at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2465873
Additional readings:
Christian Joerges, ’Europas Wirtschaftsverfassung in der Krise’, Der Staat 51
(3): 357-385 (2012)
Week 2 (November 10): Economisation/Globalisation
Required readings:
Joseph Stiglitz, ‘Globalization and the Economic Role of the State in the New
Millennium’ Industrial and Corporate Change 12: 3-26 (2003), available at
https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/download/papers/2003_
Globalization_and_the_Economic_Role.pdf
Christian Joerges, ‘The European Economic Constitution and its
Transformation through the Financial Crisis’, working paper, available at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2155173
Harm Schepel, Peter Muchlinski, Horatia Muir Watt, Guus Van Harten,
Statement of Concern about Planned Provisions on Investment Protection and
Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP), (Public Consultation on investor-state arbitration in TTIP –
Comment) (see http://www.kent.ac.uk/law/isds_treaty_consultation.html )
Additional readings:
Michael Hudson, ‘The Transition from Industrial Capitalism to a
Financialized Bubble Economy’, Working Paper No. 627, Levy Economics
Institute, October 2010, available at
http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_627.pdf
José Antonio Ocampo and Joseph Stiglitz, ‘From the G-20 to a Global
Economic Coordination Council’ Journal of Globalization and Development 2 (2):
Article 9 (2011), available at
https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/cfusion/faculty/jstiglitz/download/paper
s/2012_G20_Glob_Econ_Coord.pdf
Christine Overdevest and Jonathan Zeitlin, ‘Assembling an experimentalist
regime: Transnational governance interactions in the forest sector’, Regulation
& Governance 8(1): 22-48 (2014)
Week 3 (November 17): Who is supreme: public or private law?
Required Readings:
J. Locke Two Treatises of Government: Second Treatise , ch. IX, ‘The Purposes of
Political Society and Government’ (1689 Cambridge University Press; 3rd
Student Manual 28 Oct 1988). available electronically at
http://biblio.eui.eu/search~S5?/ttwo+treatises/ttwo+treatises/1%2C18%2C
34%2CB/exact&FF=ttwo+treatises+of+government+by+iohn+locke&1%2C2
%2C/indexsort=T. Hobbes, Leviathan ch. XVII ‘Of the Causes, Generation, & Definition of a
Commonwealth’ (Oxford OUP 2012).
Lueth judgment. BVerfGE 7, 198 I. Senate (1 BvR 400/51), available at
http://www.utexas.edu/law/academics/centers/transnational/work_new/
german/case.php?id=1369
(HL) Office of Fair Trading v Abbey National plc and Others [2009] UKSC 6U
(Lord Mance’s judgment only, paras. 94-118)
Mattias Kumm, ‘Who is afraid of the Total Constitution? Constitutional
Rights as Principles and the Constitutionalization of Private Law’, German
Law Journal 7: 341-370 (2006) available at
http://www.germanlawjournal.com/pdfs/Vol07No04/PDF_Vol_07_No_04_
341-370_Articles%20Kumm.pdf
Additional Readings:
Franz Böhm ‘Private Law Society (original: Franz Böhm,
‘Privatrechtsgesellschaft und Marktwirtschaft’, ORDO (Jahrbuch für die
Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft) (1966): 75–151
Karl-Heinz Ladeur, ‘The State in International Law’, available at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1646394
Martijn Hesselink, ‘Democratic Contract Law’. Amsterdam Law School Legal
Studies Research Paper No. 2014-24 Centre for the Study of European
Contract Law Working Paper No. 2014-03
Giovanni Commandé ‘The Fifth Freedom’, unpublished manuscript.
ECJ Judgment of 14 March 2013, C-415/11 Mohamed Aziz v Caixa (not yet
published)
Week 4 (November 24): Technology and social organisation
Guest discussion with Urs Gasser (Berkman Center for Internet & Society,
Harvard) and Alexander Trechsel (EUI)
Required readings:
Urs Gasser, ‘Regulating Search Engines: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead’
Yale Journal of Law & Technology 9: 124 (2006)
Alexander Trechsel, ‘Towards a Paparazzi Democracy’, Paper presented at
the annual meeting of the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Council for
European Studies (2014)
Yochai Benkler, ‘Practical Anarchism: Peer Mutualism, Market Power, and
the Fallible State’ Politics and Society 4(2): 213-251 (2013), available at
http://www.benkler.org/benkler_Peer_Mutualism.pdf
Roger Brownsword, ‘Whither the Law and the Law Books? From Prescription
to Possibility’ Journal of Law and Society 39(2): 296–308 (2012)
Additional readings:
Urs Gasser, Cloud Innovation and the Law: Issues, Approaches, and Interplay
(March 17, 2014). Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2014-7, available
at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2410271
Yochai Benkler, Law, Policy, and Cooperation, in Balleisen, Edward, and
David Moss, eds. Government and Markets: Toward a New Theory of Regulation
(Cambridge University Press, 2009), available at
http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Law%20Policy%20Cooperation%2004.pdf
Herbert Burkert, ‘Information Law: From Discipline to Method’, Berkman
Center Research Publication No. 2014-5; U. of St. Gallen Law & Economics
Working Paper No. 2014-02 available at
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2402866
Roger Brownsword, ‘In the Year 2061: From Law to Technological
Management’ (unpublished manuscript)