The European Commission’s Proposal for a Regulation on a Common European Sales Law (‘CESL’) seeks to create a European scheme of contract law available for parties to choose to govern cross-border contracts for the sale of goods, supply of ‘digital content,’ and for the supply of related services.This article explains the background to the Proposal, sketches out the purposes and scope of the CESL, and considers and criticises its legal framework (and in particular its relationship with private international law) and the key requirement of the parties’ agreement. In the author’s view, the CESL scheme remains an unconvincing basis for the achievement of its economic purposes and, as regards consumer contracts, puts too much reliance on the agreement of the consumer as a justification for the loss of their existing protection under EU private international law rules.

This article explains and assess the category of 'contracts for services' in English law and its relationship to other contracts. It then compares this to the approach taken by the Draft Common Frame of Reference

This forms the introduction and general overview of the work which I also edited on the historical development of product liability in 6 European laws. It forms part of a wider AHRD project on Legal Development (the first stage of which focussed on the development of liability for fault) run by John Bell and David Ibbetson of Cambridge.

ISBN: ISBN 978-0-521-49429