Costs and benefits of an optional European sales law (CESL)

This article forms part of a special edition of the Common Market Law Review.

Publishers Abstract:
The idea of a European Optional Contract Law is a fascinating vision, but at the same time also a project which, with the proposal for a Common European Sales Law (CESL), has become very palpable. Therefore, the topic is to be approached both in a general way costs and benefits of this (proposed) Optional European Contract Law, more restrictively: Optional European Sales Law. The link with the contributions on substantive law (see elsewhere in this special issue) is mainly that vertical regulatory competition is seen -- quite obviously -- in its potential to enhance a framework scheme for fostering better substantive law quality.

Therefore single substantive law rules will only be used as examples for illustration. The base line of this contribution will be that it is a "constitutional" question whether and in what way to introduce an Optional European Contract or Sales Law -- "constitutional" with respect to competences and powers of legislatures; "constitutional", however, also for private law scholarship and practice more generally.