The Concept of the Principle of Relativity of the Effects of the Contract: Regulation and Foundation
The Concept of the Principle of Relativity of the Effects of the Contract: Regulation and Foundation

Summary/Abstract: The legislator of the old Romanian Civil Code regulated the principle of relativity of the contract effects in Book III (“On the different ways of acquiring property”), Title III (“On contracts or conventions”), Chapter III (“On the effect of conventions”), Section II (“On the effect of conventions on third parties”), Article 973. The rule of relativity of the biding effects of legal relationships arising from contracts, in their meaning of direct effects, was taken over by the legislator of the old Romanian Civil Code from the text of Article 1165 of the French Civil Code. Unlike the old regulation, the current Civil Code, whose appearance has been imposed by the legal, economic, social, and historical context after 1989, acknowledges the existence of exceptions to the principle of relativity of the effects of the contract, exceptions which are prescribed exclusively by law. The source of inspiration for the editors of the new Civil Code was Article 1165 of the French Civil Code. The principle of relativity of the effects of the contract is also found in the legal regulations of other states, such as the Civil Code of the Québec Province (Articles 1440-1442), the Louisiana Civil Code 1983-1985 (the chapter entitled “Effects of Conventional Obligations”), the Belgian Civil Code (Article 1165), the Spanish Civil Code (Article 1257), the Italian Civil Code (Article 1372 entitled “Contract effectiveness”), the Algerian Civil Code (Articles 108-113), the Senegalese Civil and Trade Obligation Code (Article 110 entitled “Contract Relativity”), the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Article 34), the French Law no. 66-420/1996 on charter and maritime transport contracts (Article 52), and the European Project for a Code of Obligations or the Gandolfi Project (Article 42).

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