Pathways to interpersonal justice in European private law: top-down or bottom-up?

Abstract

Katharina Pistor’s recent work has revealed a deep justice deficit in private law, raising fundamental questions about how it could be reduced. While Pistor favours piecemeal bottom-up solutions to instances of injustice, Martijn Hesselink proposes a more radical top-down strategy – the adoption of a progressive European code of private law. This article explores the top-down and bottom-up pathways to justice in private law, focussing on the role of interpersonal justice as justice between substantively free and equal persons in European private law. It shows that although concerns about a balance of the competing interests of private parties pervade many of its areas, they do not take central stage in European private law. The substantive private autonomy embodied in national private law systems, the regulated private autonomy enshrined in EU secondary private law and the unregulated private autonomy with an interstate element underpinning EU free movement law sit uneasily together. It is argued that in order to enhance the role of interpersonal justice in the internal market and develop a more coherent European private law, the current bottom-up pathway thereto could be complemented by a more top-down roadmap towards the EU principles of private law justice.

Keywords

• European private law
• EU free movement law
• interpersonal justice
• private autonomy
• consumer protection
• private enforcement