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Contract Law Minimalism Commercialcontractlawisineverysenseoptional,giventhechoicebetween legal systems and between law and arbitration. Its ‘doctrines’ are in fact virtually all default rules. Contract Law Minimalism advances the thesis that commercial parties preferaminimalistlawthatsetsoutto enforce whatthey havedecided–butdoesnothingelse.Thelimitedcapacityofthelegalprocess is the key to this ‘minimalist’ stance. This book considers evidence that such minimalism is indeed what commercial parties choose to govern their trans- actions. It critically engages with alternative schools of thought, that call for active regulation of contracts to promote either economic efficiency or the trust and co-operation necessary for ‘relational contracting’. The book also necessarilyarguesagainsttheviewthatprivatelawshouldbeunderstoodnon- instrumentally(whetherthroughpromissorymorality,correctivejustice,taxo- nomicrationality,orotherwise).ItsketchesarestatementofEnglishcontract law in line with the thesis. JonathanMorganisFellowofCorpusChristiCollegeandUniversityLecturerin Law,UniversityofCambridge.HewaspreviouslyFellowandTutorinLawat StCatherine’sCollege,Oxford,andFellowandDirectorofStudiesatChrist’s College,Cambridge.HehasformanyyearsalsotaughtEnglishlawatWarsaw University and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe. His teaching and researchinterests range across the law of obligations andpublic law. The Law inContext Series Editors:WilliamTwining(UniversityCollegeLondon), ChristopherMcCrudden(Queen’sUniversityBelfast)and BronwenMorgan(UniversityofBristol). Since 1970 the Law in Context series has been at the forefront of the movement to broaden the study of law. It has been a vehicle for the publication of innovative scholarly books that treat law and legal phenomena critically in their social, political and economic contexts from avariety of perspectives. The series particularly aims to publish scholarly legal writing that brings fresh perspectives to bear on new and existing areas of law taught in universities. A contextual approach involves treating legalsubjectsbroadly,usingmaterialsfromothersocialsciences,andfromanyother disciplinethathelpstoexplaintheoperationinpracticeofthesubjectunderdiscussion. Itishopedthatthisorientationisatoncemorestimulatingandmorerealisticthanthe bare exposition oflegalrules. The series includes original booksthat haveadifferent emphasisfromtraditionallegaltextbooks,whilemaintainingthesamehighstandards ofscholarship.Theyarewrittenprimarilyforundergraduateandgraduatestudentsof lawandofotherdisciplines,butwillalsoappealtoawiderreadership.Inthepast,most booksintheserieshavefocusedonEnglishlaw,butrecentpublicationsincludebooks onEuropeanlaw,globalisation,transnationallegalprocesses,andcomparativelaw. BooksintheSeries Anderson,Schum&Twining:AnalysisofEvidence Ashworth:SentencingandCriminalJustice Barton&Douglas:LawandParenthood Beecher-Monas: Evaluating Scientific Evidence: An Interdisciplinary Framework for IntellectualDueProcess Bell:FrenchLegalCultures Bercusson:EuropeanLabourLaw Birkinshaw:EuropeanPublicLaw Birkinshaw:FreedomofInformation:TheLaw,thePracticeandtheIdeal Brownsword&Goodwin:LawandtheTechnologiesoftheTwenty-FirstCentury Cane:Atiyah’sAccidents,CompensationandtheLaw Clarke&Kohler:PropertyLaw:CommentaryandMaterials Collins:TheLawofContract Collins,Ewing&McColgan:LabourLaw Cowan:HousingLawandPolicy Cranston:LegalFoundationsoftheWelfareState Darian-Smith:LawsandSocietiesinGlobalContexts:ContemporaryApproaches Dauvergne:MakingPeopleIllegal:WhatGlobalisationMeansforImmigrationandLaw Davies:PerspectivesonLabourLaw deSousaSantos:TowardaNewLegalCommonSense Dembour:WhoBelievesinHumanRights?:TheEuropeanConventioninQuestion Diduck:Law’sFamilies Fortin:Children’sRightsandtheDevelopingLaw Ghai & Woodham: PractisingSelf-Government: AComparative Study of Autonomous Regions Glover-Thomas:ReconstructingMentalHealthLawandPolicy Gobert&Punch:RethinkingCorporateCrime Goldman: Globalisation and the Western Legal Tradition: Recurring Patterns of Law andAuthority Harlow&Rawlings:LawandAdministration Harris:AnIntroductiontoLaw Harris,Campbell&Halson:RemediesinContractandTort Harvey:SeekingAsylumintheUK:ProblemsandProspects Hervey&McHale:HealthLawandtheEuropeanUnion Holder&Lee:EnvironmentalProtection,LawandPolicy Jackson&Summers:TheInternationalisationofCriminalEvidence Kostakopoulou:TheFutureGovernanceofCitizenship Lewis:ChoiceandtheLegalOrder:RisingabovePolitics Likosky:Law,InfrastructureandHumanRights Likosky:TransnationalLegalProcesses Maughan&Webb:LawyeringSkillsandtheLegalProcess McGlynn:FamiliesandtheEuropeanUnion:Law,PoliticsandPluralism Moffat:TrustsLaw:TextandMaterials Monti:ECCompetitionLaw Morgan:ContractLawMinimalism Morgan&Yeung:AnIntroductiontoLawandRegulation:TextandMaterials Norrie:Crime,ReasonandHistory O’Dair:LegalEthics Oliver:CommonValuesandthePublic–PrivateDivide Oliver&Drewry:TheLawandParliament Picciotto:InternationalBusinessTaxation Probert:TheChangingLegalRegulationofCohabitation,1600–2010 Reed:InternetLaw:TextandMaterials Richardson:Law,ProcessandCustody Roberts&Palmer:DisputeProcesses:ADRandthePrimaryFormsofDecision-Making Rowbottom:DemocracyDistorted:Wealth,InfluenceandDemocraticPolitics Scott&Black:Cranston’sConsumersandtheLaw Seneviratne:Ombudsmen:PublicServicesandAdministrativeJustice Stapleton:ProductLiability Stewart:Gender,LawandJusticeinaGlobalMarket Tamanaha:LawasaMeanstoanEnd:ThreattotheRuleofLaw Turpin&Tomkins:BritishGovernmentandtheConstitution:TextandMaterials Twining:GeneralJurisprudence:UnderstandingLawfromaGlobalPerspective Twining:GlobalisationandLegalTheory Twining: Human Rights, Southern Voices: Francis Deng, Abdullahi An-Na’im, Yash GhaiandUpendraBaxi Twining:RethinkingEvidence Twining&Miers:HowtoDoThingswithRules Ward:ACriticalIntroductiontoEuropeanLaw Ward:Law,Text,Terror Ward:ShakespeareandLegalImagination Wells&Quick:Lacey,WellsandQuick:ReconstructingCriminalLaw Zander:CasesandMaterialsontheEnglishLegalSystem Zander:TheLaw-MakingProcess International Journal ofLaw in Context: A Global Forum for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies The International Journal of Law in Context is the companion journal to the Law in Contextbookseriesandprovidesaforumforinterdisciplinarylegalstudiesandoffers intellectual space for ground-breaking critical research. It publishes contextual work about law and its relationship with other disciplines including but not limited to science, literature, humanities, philosophy, sociology, psychology, ethics, history and geography. More information about the journal and how to submit an article can be foundathttp://journals.cambridge.org/ijc. Contract Law Minimalism A Formalist Restatement of Commercial Contract Law JONATHAN MORGAN CorpusChristiCollege,Cambridge UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCB28BS,UnitedKingdom PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyCambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learningandresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107021075 ©JonathanMorgan2013 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2013 PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyCPIGroupLtd,CroydonCR04YY AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationData Morgan,Jonathan(JonathanEdward) Contractlawminimalism:aformalistrestatementofcommercialcontractlaw/JonathanMorgan. pages cm.–(Lawincontext) ISBN978-1-107-02107-5(Hardback) 1. Contracts. 2. Commerciallaw. 3. Contracts–Philosophy. I. Title. 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