Social contract law is supposed to enable social cooperation and the fulfilment of existential needs of every person. Contracts about work, executed dependently in employment or independently in freelance work, are therefore an excellent test case for the social workings of contract law. Five years after the International Social Contract Law Group (EuSoCo) published its „Principles of social long‐term contracts“, this conference revisits the Principles in view of recent developments in the contracting of work and labour. It departs from the analysis that in many legal orders contract law is modelled on sales contracts. Social long‐term contracts governing employment and work, consumer credit, renting and leasing (= Life Time Contracts, LTC) have been put to the margins of contract law. In order to gain a fresh perspective on how a social contract law could look like, this conference approaches basic contractual forms, principles, common approaches and achievements in existing social contract laws from their borders and fringes, i.e. in contracts about work. The term “contracts about work” refers to the fact that work, in the digital age, is being contracted not only in employment and other long‐term contracts, but more and more with the help of digital platforms modelled on sales and spot contracts. There has been an ongoing debate as to the boundaries between employment and self‐employment, between organisation and market coordination. This conference searches for general principles for contracts about work, and puts the principles of social long‐term contracts to the test of contracts about work.

Link zur Einladung

Venue: Collegium Polonicum, ul. Kościuszki 1, PL 69 – 100 Słubice
For information and registration:
Prof. Dr. Eva Kocher,
Juristische Fakultät, Europa‐Universität Viadrina,
Große Scharrnstr. 59, D‐15230 Frankfurt (Oder)
Contact: EuSoCo‐FfO2019@europa‐uni.de