Embedding the Principles of Life Time Contracts: A Research Agenda for Contract Law

Following the success of EuSoCo’s book, Life Time Contracts: Social Long-term Contracts in Labour, Tenancy and Consumer Credit Law (Eleven International Publishing, 2014), in which EuSoCo laid out sixteen Principles of Life Time Contracts to apply whenever individuals seek to form or continue such social long-term relationships, in this book, we expand thereon, making the Principles more accessible and useful to practitioners, judges, and even policy makers.

As society depends on individuals being able to meet certain basic necessities, the need to elaborate common principles to preserve and protect Life Time Contracts remains crucial. In this book we focus on how practitioners, judges, and policy makers can embed these sixteen Principles in the existing legal framework.

To aid them in this task, we expand on the way these Principles can be used to interpret and inform general contract law, with a special emphasis on employment, consumer credit, and residential tenancy contracts. We pay particular attention to those areas affected by the digital economy and by regulatory measures introduced in response to the economic crisis and recession.

Luca Ratti is Associate Professor of European and Comparative Labour Law at the University of Luxembourg and an Internal Fellow of the Robert Schuman Institute of European Affairs, Luxembourg. After a period as a visiting post-doc in the United Kingdom, from 2012 through 2015 he served as Senior Researcher and Adjunct Professor in Labour Law and Social Security at the University of Bologna, from which he obtained his Doctorate in 2007.