Obligations Discussion Group North Launch

A meeting of the Obligations Discussion Group North (2.00-3.00pm), followed by a talk by Robert Stevens, Professor of English Private Law at Oxford University.

Before We Begin: Defining English Contract Law 

Abstract: 

Contract within the law
The law of contract is concerned with undertakings, to which the parties have agreed, that give rise to legal rights. It is a subset of two other larger subjects, the law of agreement and the law of undertaken duties.

Within the law of contract
Contracts are a source of rights, not of privileges or immunities. Those rights come in two forms, promises to do (or not do) a particular action, and warranties that a state of affairs does or will (or does not or will not) exist. Those rights may be conditional upon one or more states of affairs existing. It is a basic mistake to see conditions and warranties as different species of promise with different consequences for breach. A warranty may be conditional, and a condition cannot itself be breached.

About the Speaker: 

Professor Robert Stevens is Professor of English Private Law at the University of Oxford. Previously he was a Professor in Commercial Law at UCL, a Lecturer in Law at the University of Oxford and a Fellow and Tutor in Law at Lady Margaret Hall where he taught from 1994 to 2007. He read law as an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, where he also studied for the Bachelor of Civil Law. He was called to the Bar in 1992. He has taught and lectured widely both within the Commonwealth (Australia and Canada) and continental Europe (Germany, the Netherlands, Spain).