European Module

Diritto Europeo dei Contratti

Il Diritto europeo dei contratti è una disciplina recente, poiché recenti sono i provvedimenti normativi su cui verte. Esso è alla base di tutte le transazioni effettuate all’interno del mercato unico europeo. Non è difficile, dunque, intuire quanta importanza rivesta oggi.

L'istituzione di un Modulo Jean Monnet sul Diritto Europeo dei Contratti, colma, quindi, una lacuna fino ad oggi esistente in materia come effetto di diverse circostanze.

Da una parte gli studiosi di diritto privato non hanno del tutto accettato l'appartenenza di questo filone di studi alla loro area disciplinare.

Al contempo, il diritto europeo dei contratti non è considerato parte essenziale del diritto comunitario perché quest' ultimo verte soprattutto sugli aspetti istituzionali.

In breve, si tratta di una disciplina di confine e per questo poco approfondita, sebbene gli sviluppi che seguiranno al processo di allargamento  lasciano presagire una crescita di attenzione sia da parte del mondo accademico che da parte dei tecnici.

Solo il forte desiderio di comprendere e far comprendere i processi in corso ha finora sostenuto la fatica che comporta l’attivazione di nuovo insegnamento. Spero di riuscire a condividere con tutti voi, durante i prossimi mesi, la passione che spinge a non accontentarsi del “noto”. Se ciò accadrà io sarò sinceramente felice.

Buon lavoro

Marisaria Maugeri

Jean Monnet Chair

DIRITTO CIVILE EUROPEO - ACQUIS COMMUNAUTAIRE E PROSPETTIVE DI ARMONIZZAZIONE

The setting up of a Jean Monnet Chair on “European Civil Law – Acquis communitaire and harmonisation perspectives”, to be included as compulsory course within the second level degree course on “EU Governance and International Politics” will provide students attending this degree course with a deep knowledge of the European contract law harmonisation process. In the last years this process has faced a strong speeding up thanks to the increased awareness, spread not only among lawyers (both scholars and practitioners) but also among economic and social forces and the involved institutional actors, of its necessity for the common market.

The Course will consist of three main parts.

The starting point of the first part will be the discipline of the consumer protection within the EU, with special reference to the Council Directive 93/13 EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts. As a matter of fact not only is this Directive an interesting piece of law for the subject it touches, but it has been largely considered as a paradigm of a new conception of contract, centred around the protection of the weaker part. The Chair will, then, try to catch the deep meaning and rationale of such a regulation in the framework of the process of market unification. A more experienced audience – second level students - compared to that attending the Jean Monnet European Module, mainly addressed to first level student and then implying a descriptive approach to the subject, can allow a more sophisticated methodology and approach.

Particularly, the unfolding of the rationale of the mentioned discipline will help to set the limits of a conception that too much emphasises its systematic meaning, and consequentially proposes its extension to all forms of contracts involving “power asymmetries”. At the same time it will also allow to figure out the real opportunities of analogical application of the law itself in all cases where the specific power asymmetry consists in an “information gap”. In this perspective, that aims not only at merely describing such a regulation, but also at unfolding its profound rationale, the most relevant profiles will be analised through lectures, round tables, workshops.

Such activities will focus on the following main topics:

-         Interpretation of Standard Contract Terms.

-         Standard Contract Terms and Information Rules.

-         The Rules Applying when Standard Contract Terms are Avoided.

-         Standard Contract Terms –  The Role of the Courts and Moral Suasion by Independent Authorities.

-         Standard Contract Terms and Financial Contracts.

-         Standard Contract Terms and Unilateral Promises.

-         The implementation of the Directive in the Member States, concentrating on the issues: Scope of Application; Integration or Incorporation of Standard Contract Terms into the Contract; Interpretation of the General Standard of Fairness; the Effects of the List of Unfair Terms.

-         Standard Contract Term and the Enlargement Process.

The second part of the Course will address other consumer protection laws, with special emphasis of the Directives on “ package travel, package holidays and package tours ” and on “Distance contracts”.

Finally, assuming that the other two parts of the Course have offered a complete information of the acquis communitaire in contractual law, we consider a priority to inform students about future perspective of harmonisation of substantive rules of European private law. This aim will be accomplished through the analysis of the steps already taken in this direction by the Commission (with the three communications in 2001, 2003, 2004), through the study of the already existing “doctrinal sources” on the subject (Principles Unidroit and Pecl), and, eventually, introducing the ongoing debate on the opportunity of providing EU of a Civil Code.

The setting up of such a teaching course can be then considered a topical necessity due to the novelty of the subjects discussed, especially because such novelty has so far prevented their proper treatment within the traditional basic courses such as Private Law and EC Law.

Buon lavoro

Marisaria Maugeri