UCL: European Contract Law (Roesler)

The Ius Commune / Institute of Global Law Speaker Series Lecture:

Protection of the Weaker Party in European Contract Law: Standardised and Individual Inferiority in Multi-Level Private Law

Speakers:
Dr Hannes Roesler
Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law

Thursday 3 December, 1-2pm
at UCL Law Faculty

Accredited with 1 CPD hour by the SRA and BSB.

About this lecture:
It is a permanent challenge to accomplish freedom of contract effectively and not just to provide its formal guarantee. Indeed, 19th century private law already included elements guaranteeing the protection of this "material" freedom of contract. However, consensus has been reached about the necessity for a private law system which also provides for real chances of self-determination. An example can be found in EC consumer law. Admittedly, the law is restrained - for reasons of legal certainty - by its personal and situational typicality and bound to formal prerequisites. However, the new rules against discrimination are dominated by approaches which strongly focus on the protection of the individual. It is supplemented by national provisions, which especially counterbalance individual weaknesses. The autonomy of national law can be explained by the different traditions with regard to "social" contract law in the Member States. The differences are especially apparent regarding public policy, good fair or breach of duty before or at the time of contracting (culpa in contrahendo). They form another argument against the undifferentiated saltation from partial to total harmonisation of contract law.  

About the speaker:
Hannes Roesler is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. His research expertise is in German and European private law, commerce and economic law (in particular CISG, competition, intellectual property and telecommunications law), civil procedure law, conflicts of law, comparative law, media and information law, European law.

Academic Career:
1992 commenced legal and social science studies at the Philipps-Universität Marburg including a one year stay (1994/95) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) as an Erasmus scholar. Fellowship recipient of the German National Merit Foundation. Completed first legal examination in 1998 in Marburg. 1995 to 1996 and 1999 to 2000 Research Assistant at the Institute for Comparative Law in Marburg. Doctoral fellowship recipient from the Hessian Scholarship for Young Scientists. Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of European and Comparative Law of the Oxford University (Merton College) in 2000 for three months. In July 2001 completed a six-week research stay with the European Commission in Brussels. From 2001 through 2003 law clerk in Frankfurt am Main. In 2003 doctorate conferred (s.c.l., Marburg), second state examination in Frankfurt am Main and four month research stay at UNIDROIT in Rome. LL.M. completed at Harvard Law School (2003/04) as German Academic Exchange Scholarship Recipient. 2004 an eight-week guest stay at the New York University, School of Law. Since September 2004 a Senior Research Fellow for European Private and Economic Law at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg. Since 2006 Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Hamburg. In Michaelmas term 2006 Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge (Wolfson College). Since 2008 co-organiser of the Hamburg International Media Law Forum (IMLF) of the German-American Lawyers' Association (DAJV). Guest lectureships on international economic and UN sales law as well as German law of obligations, in particular in Ankara (2007), Frankfurt am Main (since 2008), Istanbul (2008) and Verona (2009).