Collins, Hugh --- "The Constitutionalization of European Private Law as a Path to Social Justice?" [2011] ELECD 672; in Micklitz, Hans-W. (ed), "The Many Concepts of Social Justice in European Private Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: The Many Concepts of Social Justice in European Private Law

Editor(s): Micklitz, Hans-W.

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849802604

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: The Constitutionalization of European Private Law as a Path to Social Justice?

Author(s): Collins, Hugh

Number of pages: 34

Extract:

7. The constitutionalization of European
private law as a path to social justice?
Hugh Collins1
When the European Commission appeared to be pressing hard for harmoniza-
tion or unification of contract law,2 some feared that any European civil code
that might emerge would systematically embed into the fabric of the transna-
tional legal order a rather regressive set of rules. The apparent danger was that
the European legislative organs would endorse a code of rules infused with
nineteenth-century liberal or laissez-faire values that celebrated freedom of
contract and the protection of private property at the expense of the protection
of consumers, workers, tenants and other kinds of weaker parties.
In articulating this concern, the Manifesto on Social Justice in European
Private Law pressed the case for ensuring that the emerging European private
law would establish appropriate standards for social justice in its rules and
principles.3 Although not defined precisely, the idea of social justice evidently
refers to concepts of fairness in the distribution of wealth, power, and other
goods; and the idea of fairness suggests that this distribution should be more
equal than might otherwise occur through an unfettered market process. Thus
the ambition of the Manifesto was to promote a fairer society in the European
Union (EU) by means of new laws on contract, tort, property and other aspects
of private law.
To achieve that aim, among other proposals, the Manifesto argued that
European private law should draw upon constitutional principles. The precise
content of ...