The Oxford Handbook of the New Private Law reflects exciting developments in scholarship dedicated to reinvigorating the study of the broad field of private law. This field embraces the traditional common law subjects (property, contracts, and torts), as well as adjacent, more statutory areas, such as intellectual property and commercial law. It also includes important areas that have been neglected in the United States but are beginning to make a comeback. These include unjust enrichment, restitution, equity, and remedies more generally. "Private law" can also mean private law as a whole, which invites consideration of issues such as the public-private distinction, the similarities and differences between the various areas of private law, and the institutional framework supporting private law - including courts, arbitrators, and even custom. The New Private Law is an approach to these subjects that aims to bring a new outlook to the study of private law by moving beyond reductively instrumentalist policy evaluation and narrow, rule-by-rule, doctrine-by-doctrine analysis, so as to consider and capture how private law's various features fit and work together, as well as the normative underpinnings of these larger structures. This movement has begun resuscitating the notion of private law itself in the United States and has brought an interdisciplinary perspective to the more traditional, doctrinal approach prevalent in Commonwealth countries. The Handbook embraces a broad range of perspectives to private law - including philosophical, economic, historical, and psychological, to name a few - yet it offers a unifying theme of seriousness about the structure and content of private law. It will be an essential resource for legal scholars interested in the future of this important field.

The Oxford Handbook of the New Private Law reflects exciting developments in scholarship dedicated to reinvigorating the study of the broad field of private law. This field embraces the traditional common law subjects (property, contracts, and torts), as well as adjacent, more statutory areas, such as intellectual property and commercial law. It also includes important areas that have been neglected in the United States but are beginning to make a comeback. These include unjust enrichment, restitution, equity, and remedies more generally. "Private law" can also mean private law as a whole, which invites consideration of issues such as the public-private distinction, the similarities and differences between the various areas of private law, and the institutional framework supporting private law - including courts, arbitrators, and even custom. The New Private Law is an approach to these subjects that aims to bring a new outlook to the study of private law by moving beyond reductively instrumentalist policy evaluation and narrow, rule-by-rule, doctrine-by-doctrine analysis, so as to consider and capture how private law's various features fit and work together, as well as the normative underpinnings of these larger structures. This movement has begun resuscitating the notion of private law itself in the United States and has brought an interdisciplinary perspective to the more traditional, doctrinal approach prevalent in Commonwealth countries. The Handbook embraces a broad range of perspectives to private law - including philosophical, economic, historical, and psychological, to name a few - yet it offers a unifying theme of seriousness about the structure and content of private law. It will be an essential resource for legal scholars interested in the future of this important field.

This book examines the controversial and repercussive contention that an objective of the law should be to promote personal morality - to make people ethically better. It surveys a number of domains, including criminal law, tort law, contract law, family law, and medical law (particularly the realm of moral enhancement technologies) asking for each: (a) Does the existing law seek to promote personal morality? (b) If so, what is the account of morality promoted, and what is the substantive content? (c) Does it work? and (d) Is this a legitimate objective?

New Directions in Private Law Theory brings together some of the best new work on private law theory, reflecting the breadth of this increasingly important field. The contributions interrogate a wide range of topics including aspects of private law doctrine, its development, ordering and application. The authors adopt a variety of different approaches and contribute to ongoing and important debates about the moral foundations of private law, the individuation of areas of private law and the connections between private law and everyday moral experience. Questions addressed include: Does the diversity identified amongst claims in unjust enrichment mean that the category is incoherent? Are claims in tort law always about compensating for wrongs? How should we understand parties’ agreement in contract? The contributions shed new light on these and other topics, and the ways in which they intersect and open up new lines of scholarly enquiry. The book will be of interest to researchers working in private law and legal theory, but it will also appeal to those outside of law, most notably researchers with an interest in moral and political philosophy, economics and history.

This book explores the distinction between private and public aspects in competition law and focuses on how the concept of competition is incorporated into the legal framework. Distinguishing between antitrust regulations and competition-related legal rules in private law, such as unfair competition and contract laws, the book also differentiates between the utilitarian and deontological principles that underpin competition regulation. This historical and philosophical approach is used to compare two influential jurisdictions: England and Spain. These legal systems have had a significant impact on the development of legal rules in Common law and Civilian (Latin American) countries, respectively. Through this lens, the book further analyses the concept of "competition" and its value in each legal tradition. This understanding, in turn, helps clarify the scope of competition regulation within antitrust and private law and how the two fields coexist. Additionally, the book examines the role of property law theory in the context of competition regulation. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in the field of competition law, tort law, and legal history.

"Civil wrongs occupy a significant place in private law. They are particularly prominent in tort law, but equally have a place in contract law, property and intellectual property law, unjust enrichment, fiduciary law, and in equity more broadly. For example, some tort theorists maintain that tort law is best understood as a (or perhaps the) law of civil wrongs and some contract law theorists maintain that breach of contract is a civil wrong. Civil wrongs are also a preoccupation of leading general theories of private law, including corrective justice and civil recourse theories. According to these and other theories, the centrality of civil wrongs to civil liability shows that private law is fundamentally concerned with the expression and enforcement of norms of justice appropriate to interpersonal interaction and association. Others, sounding notes of caution or criticism, argue that a preoccupation with wrongs and remedies has meant neglect of other ways in which private law serves justice, and ways in which private law serves values other than justice. The present volume comprises original papers written by a wide variety of legal theorists and philosophers exploring the nature of civil wrongs, their place in private law, and their relationship to other forms of wrongdoing. It should be of broad interest to lawyers and legal theorists as well as moral and political theorists"--

This book develops the idea that standing is a distinct and separable private law concept that can and should be distinguished more clearly from the more dominant concept of a 'right.' By recognising standing's distinctiveness, debates within private law theory, including torts, unjust enrichment and trusts, are informed and contributed to.

Some of the most exciting and innovative legal scholarship has been driven by historical curiosity. Legal history today comes in a fascinating array of shapes and sizes, from microhistory to global intellectual history. Legal history has expanded beyond traditional parochial boundaries to become increasingly international and comparative in scope and orientation. Drawing on scholarship from around the world, and representing a variety of methodological approaches, areas of expertise, and research agendas, this timely compendium takes stock of legal history and methodology and reflects on the various modes of the historical analysis of law, past, present, and future. Part I explores the relationship between legal history and other disciplinary perspectives including economic, philosophical, comparative, literary, and rhetorical analysis of law. Part II considers various approaches to legal history, including legal history as doctrinal, intellectual, or social history. Part III focuses on the interrelation between legal history and jurisprudence by investigating the role and conception of historical inquiry in various models, schools, and movements of legal thought. Part IV traces the place and pursuit of historical analysis in various legal systems and traditions across time, cultures, and space. Finally, Part V narrows the Handbooks focus to explore several examples of legal history in action, including its use in various legal doctrinal contexts.

This volume in the prestigious series of Oxford Handbooks provides a widely accessible overview of legal scholarship at the start of the 21st century. Through 43 essays by leading legal scholars based in the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Germany, it offers original and interpretative accounts of the nature, themes and trends of research and writing about all areas of the law.