5. Human Rights in Private Law

This chapter introduces the academic debate on the role of human rights in private law for an audience of master students in transnational and European private law. It first explores the ways in which dignity may provide a foundation for extending human rights protection to private legal relations and sets out the legal context in which the ‘constitutionalisation of private law’ has developed, both nationally and under European law. Subsequently, the societal relevance of these legal developments is analysed and mapped according to three strands in the academic discourse in the field: one that holds that constitutionalisation does not provide a new view on private law, a second that sees a role for human rights in pursuing social justice in private law, and a third that considers private law to contribute to the constitutional imagination of Europe.