Commercial Law in the Next Millennium

Book excerpt: In this book, which reproduces in revised and expanded form the 49th series of Hamlyn Lectures delivered in Oxford and London in 1997, Professor Roy Goode examines some of the key factors shaping commercial law as we move into the next century. This is not a technical exposition but a bold attempt to capture the very essence of commercial law: its philosophical foundations; the perpetual tension between form and substances and between law and equity in commercial transactions, legal controls and self-regulation of market operations, and the development of new concepts of property and obligation. In this wide-ranging study, which combines the prospective with the retrospective, Roy Goode's stimulating re-analysis of fundamental legal principles and policies raises a series of critical questions about the future direction of our commercial law.