The Contract Governance of Sustainable Development

The article aims at investigating the relationship between the goals of Sustainable Development (SD) and Contract Law. In fact, we are still at the beginning in researching how closely concepts, methodologies and instruments of private law, including but not limited to contract law, can contribute to the greatest challenges of our time. Precisely, this exploration grounds on three main issues. First, the article aims at discussing whether contracts law may contribute in enhancing and governing the SD goals. In this respect, it considers three different perspectives and case-studies, consisting in i) the standardisation and certification processes of SD indicators, ii) the agreement included in the Bangladesh Accord, and iii) the practice of incorporating sustainability contractual clauses into international supply chain agreements. Second, it analyses the nature and scope of the contract governance of SD and its enforcement problem. Third, we consider the potential need and possibilities for contract law to respond to the public challenges of SD and to come up with new orientations. The main focus of this article concerns the ‘public’ life of contract law when dealing with SD and the rediscovery of the social dimension of contract law in terms of intergenerational justice.