TIMOTHY Q. DE BOOYS, University of Amsterdam - Centre for the Study of European Contract Law (CSECL)
Email: T.Q.deBooys@uva.nl
MARTIJN W. HESSELINK, University of Amsterdam - Centre for the Study of European Contract Law (CSECL)
Email: m.w.hesselink@uva.nl
CHANTAL MAK, University of Amsterdam - Centre for the Study of European Contract Law (CSECL)
Email: C.Mak@uva.nl

This study provides an in-depth and detailed comparison between the CFR and the proposed Consumer Rights Directive. Furthermore, it identifies those provisions of the CFR which could be used when amending the Proposal for a Consumer Rights Directive in the framework of the legislative procedure. In this regard, it suggests some amendments based on the CFR. A correlation table between the provisions of the CFR and the provisions of the proposed Consumer Rights Directive is provided in the annex of the study.

LUIGI RUSSI, Bocconi University, University of Oxford, University of Essex
Email: luigi.russi.business@gmail.com

Pending negotiations for a contract, one party may begin to incur expenses in fulfilment of the proposed economic operation in anticipation of the finalisation of a formal contract, which is a common practice in many settings, from building and lease contracts to contracts for services in general. This book, therefore, focuses on controversies that may arise when an expected contract collapses after one party withdraws from negotiations, with an ensuing attempt to determine what liability, if any, the withdrawing party should face regarding expenses incurred by the other. The laws of England and Italy, along with several non-legislative codifications – including the 2009 edition of the Draft Common Frame of Reference – provide the starting point for a methodologically innovative comparative analysis that does not stop at a mere compilation of similarities and differences; it also attempts to unearth the underlying policy motives, in order to provide a deeper understanding of what “cooperation before contract� really means across the two legal systems and the non-legislative codifications that will be examined here. Such an understanding is all the more important for the purpose of engaging, with a critical and informed attitude, in the ongoing debate regarding the possible adoption of a European instrument designed to introduce common contract rules.

P. G. MONATERI, University of Torino, School of Law
Email: pgmonateri1@tin.it

My standpoint in this paper is that in affording the subject of Law and Language we face a mass of “local issues�, and “local puzzles�, but that we still lack a theory to grasp with the bulk of the matter. Al this becomes peculiarly embarrassing in the age of development of “English-only� movements, and facing the rise of a rather new and framed field of studies like “traductology� that would of course, but do not actually, interplay with comparaison especially in the field of Law. In my paper I just try to look around the package of some received ideas, in order to clean the blackboard before trying to build up something newer. Thus in the first section I cope with two prevailing theories: 1.) the theory of the language as a “social glue�, which is dominant and emerging from the present American political debate; 2.) the theory of the “analogy� between Law and Language as spontaneously ordered complex phenomena; then in a second section I try to trace back these ideas in the time of the “Birth of Comparativism� in the early 19th century. In so doing i deal with: 1.) the birth of Indo-European Family in Comparative Linguistics, and, 2.) the birth of Legal Comparativism within the context of the German Legal Historicism, in the same span of time. Finally I try to show how all these conceptions are nested details of a more general consciousness with broad political implications in terms of projects of governance. Then according to my views neither language studies nor traductology can be treated as pure subject deprived of a strong political commitment. Both are field where “choices for candor� are not at hand.

RALF ROGOWSKI, University of Warwick - School of Law
Email: r.rogowski@warwick.ac.uk

For long-time observers of EU social and employment policies it is hardly surprising that the concept of flexicurity has gradually become a central concern in EU reform initiatives. The linguistically awkward combination of flexibility and security into flexicurity captures well the essence of European economic policy making since its inception and it is a good example of the distinct character of the European Social Model: a balancing of economic and social interests that understands social and employment policy as an integral part of economic policy and an important factor of production in the European economy. Furthermore flexicurity policies are a paradigm case for the new approach taken in regulating social and employment law of the European Union. Flexicurity forms part of efforts to introduce new modes of governance and a greater reliance on soft law instruments in European policy making which are outlined in the White Paper on Governance introduced by the European Commission in 2000. It will be argued in the following that we increasingly witness elements of reflexivity in these supranational efforts of policy making. The central thesis of the paper is that in order for soft forms of governance to be effective, European law and policy must become reflexive. In the areas of European social and employment policies, flexicurity and the debate over a European Social Model play an important role in this process.