Events Calendar

This talk asks whether and how contract law is relevant for the goal of promoting social justice. Put differently: should someone interested in promoting social justice in the U.S. devote any attention and effort to thinking about contract law and its possible reform? Answering this question requires first answering two others: What’s social justice and what’s contract law? Once these answers are given, contract law emerges as having some relevance for the project of transforming society to promote social justice. Contract law governs the procedure for forming enforceable market transactions between individuals and firms. As such, it can never be the main target and means of meaningful and equitable social transformation. Nevertheless, certain aspects of contract law—such as those pertaining to non-fungibility of certain human interests or “boilerplate” contracting—are significant and even indispensable elements of a more comprehensive project of institutional transformation in pursuit of a fundamental structure of society that is in line with human freedom and justice.