74645 - International Contracts in Global Markets

Course contents

The International Contract Law in Global Markets course will provide students with an introduction to the topic of contract regulation in the global markets, which entails the major problem of international trade and economic relations governance against the backdrop of the National States sovereignty crisis due to lack of legislative power and jurisdiction over global markets. The workshop is split up into two parts.

The first one (section 1 and section 2: 20 hours) covers the contract regulations provided for by the main State legal systems in Europe and their core differences. It also concerns the feasibility of uniform contract laws at European level by focusing on the academics attempts to draft common principles for European contract law, such as the PECL proposals published by the Lando Commission; DCFR and the “avant-project” revision of PECL published by the French Association Henri Capitant. Finally, we will consider the harmonization of EU member State contract law through the enforcement of vertical and horizontal directives concerning consumer contracts: special emphasis will be given to  unfair terms, travel package contracts and consumer protection in financial services.

The second module (section 3 and section 4: 20 hours) covers the topic of international commercial contracts a-national and transnational regulations as carried out by: - international institutions such as the International Chamber of Commerce (as is the case with Incoterms and uniform customs and documentary credit practice); - international organizations set up at the initiative of States, like Unidroit or  otherwise based on Treaties, like Uncitral, and - even engendered by private business circles (as is the case for marine insurance standard clauses). We will also consider the role played by the arbitral tribunals in engineering a legal context for  international business and economic transactions by advancing principles or norms  that would go beyond the concrete interests of the parties involved in transactions (as is the case with lex mercatoria applied to disputes concerning petroleum concession agreement entered into by States and Nationals of other States). The final part of the course will be devoted to foreign investment control issue by analyzing the Washington Convention and ICSID case law with emphasis on the topic of land grabbing.   

Readings/Bibliography

The students attending to the course will benefit of a reduced exam program and of materials made available during the lessons.  For all the other students, the texts of reference are the following (the relevant chapters will be indicated in this internet page during the lessons time): 1) F. BORTOLOTTI, Drafting and negotiating international commercial contracts: a practical guide, ICC, 2013;  
2) Guillermo C. JIMENEZ, ICC guide to export/import. Global standards for international trade, ICC, 4° ed.  
The  ICC reserves to Professor Alvisi course students a special discount (30%) on the above mentioned publications.   To take profit of the said discount the students can send their order by email to iccpublications@iccwbo.org. 

3) Hugh BEALE, Benedicte FAUVARQUE-COSSON, Jacobien RUTGERS, Denis TALLON, Stefan VOGENAUER, Cases, materials, text on Contract Law, Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2010.

Assessment methods

Ability and skills will be checked through multiple choice test and an oral examination

Teaching tools

projector, slides, websites

Links to further information

http://www.unibo.it/SitoWebDocente/default.aspx?UPN=chiara.alvisi%40unibo.it&View=Avvisi&id=70624

Office hours

See the website of Chiara Alvisi