Bibliographie sélective OHADA

The idea that a contract should affect other people than the parties has seemingly always been a provocative notion. A contract binds the contracting parties – and only them – together in a legal relationship, and yet according to contemporary law a contract can have various legal effects for third parties, i.e. non-parties. The parties can conclude a contract for the benefit of a third party, and third parties can be affected by the contracts of others pursuant to both statutory law and uncodified general principles of law. The legal theme of contractual third party effects involves both theoretical and practical challenges. This doctoral dissertation addresses a number of these challenges, by examining (mainly) Swedish and Nordic private law sources. The study explores third party contracts and direct claims, as well as the relationship between these two legal figures, by placing them in a historical and theoretical context and by performing a series of contextualizing readings of sources revealing developments in both case law and legal scholarship. The research is based on a legal scientific methodology, enriched by theoretical and methodological imports pillaged from the classical teachings and contemporary scholarship on rhetoric. The result can be characterized as a form of rhetorically infused, topically oriented, hermeneutic study of contemporary legal discourse on third party effects of contract.

This doctoral thesis examines liability for discrimination under Swedish private law. According to chapter 5, section 1 of the Swedish Discrimination Act (diskrimineringslagen) compensation shall be paid by natural or legal persons who violate the prohibitions of discrimination that are established in the act. The purpose of the compensation is not only to compensate the person discriminated against for the violation of the right to equal treatment, but also to prevent further discrimination. The thesis examines two main questions: (i) what preconditions need to be fulfilled in order to establish liability for discrimination? and (ii) what circumstances affect the amount of compensation? An overarching aim of the thesis is to create an understanding of the characteristic problems and questions that occur when handling discrimination-related questions in a private law context. Consideration is taken to the EU law background and the aim, articulated in EU directives, to achieve effective, proportionate and dissuasive remedies for breaches of the principle of equal treatment. The research focuses on the prohibitions applicable in the working life and regarding goods, services and housing. It includes detailed analyses of the prohibitions against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, inadequate accessibility, harassment and sexual harassment. The analyses deal with questions concerning the subjective motives of the discriminating party, problematic aspects considering the burden of proof as well as the exceptions from the prohibitions. Circumstances affecting the amount of compensation are analysed considering the character of the discriminating behaviour and its effects. Certain aspects attributable to the preventive function of the damages are examined, as well as how they have been decisive in the court judgements.

This is a thesis in contract law concerning the distinction between interpretation of contracts (“tolkning”) and construction of contracts (“utfyllning”) traditionally upheld within Scandinavian doctrine. To some extent, this distinction has always been a source of conceptual confusion, but in late-modern times, it has, in certain respects, become almost unintelligible – owing to the gradual loss of function of the form of rationality that originally sustained it. The distinction is now a mere artefact. In itself, this fact does, of course, not make this particular conceptual contraption exceptional. As they are absorbed into the language of contract law, all successful contract law concepts undergoes a process of reification. In the case of the distinction between interpretation and construction, the result is, however, unusually curious. In its traditional form, the distinction expresses the hope for a law of contract that is organized according to scientific principles. It rests on the assumption that it is desirable and possible, in principle, to separate science from non-science. It presupposes that questions of fact are separable from questions of law, Is from Ought, and the uncovering of the meaning of legal documents from the application of the rules they contain. The distinction promises that it is possible to escape the confines of the law-text, to reach beyond the text and the play of words constituting its interpretation, in order to ground interpretive discourse in factual reality. Yet, the distinction itself is nothing but text, i e, nothing but law. Drawing on the Kantian tradition, specifically on the writings of Wittgenstein, the author subjects this contradictory structure to criticism. The aim of the study is, however, not to once and for all remove the contradiction. On the contrary, the policy advocated is one of acceptance – mediated through historical awareness. By distancing ourselves from the vision of law and science that is immanent in the distinction under scrutiny, we would be able to come to terms with the hermeneutical side of contract interpretation, and with the inscrutability of the subjective dimension of the contract construct. When interpretation is called for, it is due to the very fact that there is no verifiable intention, yet the conclusions of the interpreter are given in the form of reports on what the parties actually intended. This, the author concludes, does not make the interpretation of contracts unscientific, even though we, being Scandinavian private law lawyers, were fostered to think otherwise.