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Copyright

Jaap Baaij;

Published On

2025-06-05

Page Range

pp. 45–64

Language

  • English

Print Length

20 pages

3. Negative Integration, European Private Law, and the Government’s Role in the Marketplace

  • Jaap Baaij (author)
Chapter of: Uncovering European Private Law: A Student Handbook(pp. 45–64)
On the surface, the deregulatory character of Europe’s initial use of negative legal integration in the 1950s appears to have little bearing on today’s positive integration of consumer rights protection through European private law (EPL). This chapter argues to the contrary. On closer inspection, EPL is cut from the same political cloth as negative European integration. The reason is that both negative and positive legal integration permit the use of contract law as a tool of private market regulation for the sake of societal wealth maximisation. The chapter concludes, therefore, that describing, supporting, or criticising the current state or trajectory of EPL should consider these utilitarian underpinnings related to the government’s regulatory role in the marketplace.

Contributors

Jaap Baaij

(author)
Associate Professor at Utrecht University

Dr. Jaap Baaij is an Associate Professor at the Montaigne Centre for Rule of Law and Administration of Justice and the Molengraaff Institute for Private Law of the University of Utrecht. His interdisciplinary research concentrates on the state’s utilisation of contract law and civil procedural law to advance—or curb—privatemarket lawmaking through alternative dispute resolution. At this interface of public and private governance, he combines doctrinal analyses with empirical research, political theory, language philosophy, and comparative law to take on themes related to contract interpretation, cross-border commercial transactions and arbitration, corporate social responsibility, and transnational legal theory. He obtained his Ph.D. cum laude at the University of Amsterdam, at the Centre for the Study of European Contract Law (CSECL), the predecessor of ACT. He also obtained a J.D. from Yale Law School. See https://www.uu.nl/staff/CJWBaaij