Table Of Content

Vanishing Contract Law English contract law provides the invisible framework that underpins and enablesmuchcontractingactivityinsociety,yettheroleofthelawinpolicing many of our contracts now approaches vanishing point. The methods by which contracts come into existence, and notionally create binding obliga- tions, have transformed over the past forty years. Consumers now enter into contracts through remote and automated processes on standard terms over whichtheyhavelittlecontrol.Thisbookexploresthesubstantiveweakeningof the institution of contract law in a society heavily dependent on contracts. It considers significant areas of contracting activity that affect many people but that escape serious and sustained legal scrutiny. An accessibly written and succinct account of contract law’s past, present and future, it assesses the implications of a diminished contract law and the possibilities, if any, for its revival. Catherine Mitchell is a reader in private law at the University of Birmingham. She has published widely on contract and has been cited by the House of Lords, the Singapore Court of Appeal and the Law Commissions of England and Scotland. Published online by Cambridge University Press Published online by Cambridge University Press Law inContext Serieseditors:ProfessorKennethArmstrongUniversityofCambridge ProfessorMaksymilianDelMarQueenMary,UniversityofLondon ProfessorSallySheldonUniversityofKent EditorialadvisoryboardBronwenMorganUniversityofNewSouthWales EmeritusProfessorWilliamTwiningUniversityCollegeLondon Since 1970, the Law in Context series has been at the forefront of a movement to broaden the study of law. The series is a vehicle for the publication of innovative monographs and texts that treat law and legal phenomena critically in their cultural, social, political, technological, environmental and economic contexts. A contextual approach involves treatinglegalsubjects broadly, using materials fromotherhuman- ities and social sciences, and from any other discipline that helps to explain the operation in practice of the particular legal field or legal phenomena under investi- gation. It is intended that this orientation is at once more stimulating and more revealing thanthebareexposition oflegalrules.Theseries includes originalresearch monographs, coursebooks and textbooks that foreground contextual approaches and methods.Theseriesincludesandwelcomesbooksonthestudyoflawinallitscontexts, including domestic legal systems, European and international law, transnational and globallegalprocesses,andcomparativelaw. BooksintheSeries Acosta:TheNationalversustheForeignerinSouthAmerica:200YearsofMigrationand CitizenshipLaw Ali:ModernChallengestoIslamicLaw AlyagonDarr:PlausibleCrimeStories:TheLegalHistoryofSexualOffencesinMandate Palestine Anderson,Schum&Twining:AnalysisofEvidence,2ndEdition Ashworth:SentencingandCriminalJustice,6thEdition Barton&Douglas:LawandParenthood Baxi,McCrudden&Paliwala:Law’sEthical,GlobalandTheoreticalContexts:Essaysin HonourofWilliamTwining Beecher-Monas:EvaluatingScientificEvidence:AnInterdisciplinaryFrameworkfor IntellectualDueProcess Bell:FrenchLegalCultures Published online by Cambridge University Press Bercusson:EuropeanLabourLaw,2ndEdition Birkinshaw:EuropeanPublicLaw Birkinshaw:FreedomofInformation:TheLaw,thePracticeandtheIdeal,4thEdition Blick:ElectrifiedDemocracy:TheInternetandtheUnitedKingdomParliamentin History Broderick&Ferri:InternationalandEuropeanDisabilityLawandPolicy:Text,Cases andMaterials Brownsword&Goodwin:LawandtheTechnologiesoftheTwenty-FirstCentury:Text andMaterials Cane&Goudkamp:Atiyah’sAccidents,CompensationandtheLaw,9thEdition Clarke:PrinciplesofPropertyLaw Clarke&Kohler:PropertyLaw:CommentaryandMaterials Collins:TheLawofContract,4thEdition Collins,Ewing&McColgan:LabourLaw,2ndEdition Cowan:HousingLawandPolicy Cranston:MakingCommercialLawThroughPractice1830–1970 Cranston:LegalFoundationsoftheWelfareState Darian-Smith:LawsandSocietiesinGlobalContexts:ContemporaryApproaches Dauvergne:MakingPeopleIllegal:WhatGlobalisationMeansforImmigrationandLaw David:Kinship,LawandPolitics:AnAnatomyofBelonging Davies:PerspectivesonLabourLaw,2ndEdition Dembour:WhoBelievesinHumanRights?:ReflectionsontheEuropeanConvention deSousaSantos:TowardaNewLegalCommonSense:Law,Globalization,and Emancipation Diduck:Law’sFamilies Dowdle:TransnationalLaw:AFrameworkforAnalysis Dupret:PositiveLawfromtheMuslimWorld:Jurisprudence,History,Practices Emon:JurisdictionalExceptionalisms:IslamicLaw,InternationalLaw,andParental ChildAbduction Estella:LegalFoundationsofEUEconomicGovernance Fortin:Children’sRightsandtheDevelopingLaw,3rdEdition Garnsey:TheJusticeofVisualArt:CreativeState-BuildinginTimesofPolitical Transition Garton,Probert&Bean:Moffat’sTrustsLaw:TextandMaterials,7thEdition Ghai&Woodman:PractisingSelf-Government:AComparativeStudyofAutonomous Regions Glover-Thomas:ReconstructingMentalHealthLawandPolicy Gobert&Punch:RethinkingCorporateCrime Goldman:GlobalisationandtheWesternLegalTradition:RecurringPatternsofLaw andAuthority Haack:EvidenceMatters:Science,Proof,andTruthintheLaw Harlow&Rawlings:LawandAdministration,4thEdition Published online by Cambridge University Press Harris:AnIntroductiontoLaw,8thEdition Harris,Campbell&Halson:RemediesinContractandTort,2ndEdition Harvey:SeekingAsylumintheUK:ProblemsandProspects Herring:LawandtheRelationalSelf Hervey&McHale:EuropeanUnionHealthLaw:ThemesandImplications Hervey&McHale:HealthLawandtheEuropeanUnion Holder&Lee:EnvironmentalProtection,LawandPolicy:TextandMaterials,2nd Edition Jackson&Summers:TheInternationalisationofCriminalEvidence:Beyondthe CommonLawandCivilLawTraditions Kostakopoulou:TheFutureGovernanceofCitizenship Kreiczer-Levy:DestabilizedProperty:PropertyLawintheSharingEconomy Kubal:ImmigrationandRefugeeLawinRussia:Socio-LegalPerspectives Lewis:ChoiceandtheLegalOrder:RisingabovePolitics Likosky:Law,InfrastructureandHumanRights Likosky:TransnationalLegalProcesses:GlobalisationandPowerDisparities Lixinski:LegalizedIdentities:CulturalHeritageLawandtheShapingofTransitional Justice Loughnan:Self,OthersandtheState:RelationsofCriminalResponsibility Lunney:AHistoryofAustralianTortLaw1901–1945:England’sObedientServant? 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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 foundatwww.journals.cambridge.org/ijc Published online by Cambridge University Press Published online by Cambridge University Press Vanishing Contract Law Common Law in the Age of Contracts CATHERINE MITCHELL UniversityofBirmingham Published online by Cambridge University Press