Research methods for contracts and sustainability

Kateřina Mitkidis

Chapter 9 in Research Methods for Contract Law and Scholarship, 2025, pp 210-234 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The legal tool of private contract seems ill-fitted to positively influence global sustainability. Yet, it has become common for businesses to incorporate sustainability requirements into their contracts. Through these sustainability contractual clauses (SCCs), they require their business partners to behave in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. Unrelated to the subject matter of an individual contract, SCCs transform the conventional transactional function of business contracts into a regulatory one, where the objective is to influence the behaviour of contractual parties in areas detached from the specific transaction. Consequently, SCCs shift the contract paradigm and methodologically challenge contract law scholars. The methods employed by contract law scholars to study SCCs are as diverse as the content of these clauses and the ‘new’ purposes contracts serve. Drawing from a literature review that combines database searches with snowballing, this chapter documents and discusses (i) the various streams in contract law scholarship on supply chain contracts and sustainability; and (ii) the research methods utilized to study this topic. The discussed methods encompass the doctrinal legal method, theoretical research, empirical methods, and the comparative method. For each method, its contributions and challenges are assessed.

Keywords: Sustainability contractual clauses; Doctrinal legal method; Theoretical research; Empirical methods; Comparative method; Regulatory function of contracts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035316465
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