REGULATING CONTRACTS: THE EVOLVING NORMATIVE CONTEXTS IN LIGHT OF THE RATIONALES INFORMING THE 1933 POLISH CODE OF OBLIGATIONS
REGULATING CONTRACTS: THE EVOLVING NORMATIVE CONTEXTS IN LIGHT OF THE RATIONALES INFORMING THE 1933 POLISH CODE OF OBLIGATIONS

Summary/Abstract: In analyzing the operation of contract law settings across jurisdictions, the recent emphasis is on normative contexts that emerge, on the one hand, alongside pervasive informal schemes of contract rule-making, and on the other, as a result of structural changes to state-endorsed regulation in the area of contracts. Thus, what ensues is pressure to articulate a legitimate and consistent approach to policing contracts. While oriented prospectively, such research needs to be informed by the jurisprudential experience inherent in law-making practice. Significantly, a comprehensive understanding of how to rationalize contract regulation can be arrived at by critically drawing upon a grounded, comparative-law-based and socio-economically specific argumentation. These qualities characterize the methodological approach underlying the no-longer-in-force Polish Code of Obligations of 1933. Recognized as the premier private law codification at the regional scale, it was structured around the then eruditely advanced much principled conceptualization of a modern law of obligations. As 2024 marks 90 years since the Polish Code of Obligations entered into force, the aim of this paper is to examine the legislative thoughts and precepts behind the interwar codification, yet contextualizing them with the latest problematic issues in contract law and policy. By surveying the actualities of contracting and the lines along which contract laws appear to evolve, comparisons and analogies are sought to be drawn within the dichotomy between civil law and common law. On this basis, the paper explores and illustrates to what extent the normative underpinnings of the Polish Code of Obligations are of universal import, and what insights for contract regulation can derive from the enquiry into its distinctive axiology.

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