PRESENTATION
I. The "Socialization of Private Law" is related to the evolution of civil law from the individualistic background that characterized it in the liberal environment of the 19th century, towards a more social approach, linked to the implementation of the Welfare State in the 20th century.
In the course of this evolution, equality principle in Civil Law evolved from a formal perspective to a more substantive approach, which requires the promotion of affirmative actions. At the same time, goals like the pursuit of contract fairness, the recognition and the protection of personality rights were developed and non-discrimination issues have raised as new goals of Civil Law. And the same goes for the protection of the weaker party of the contract, such as consumers, tenants and employees.
In pursuit of these goals, Civil Law regulated new contracts, and developed specific rules directly intended to achieve a better balance of the rights and duties of both parties in modern trading. In this regard, Civil Law also focused its attention on E-commerce and, in general, on consumer´s protection, based on the same distributive justice of the ideal contract, and, by doing so, the protection of the weaker contracting party and the ideal of distributive justice of the contract became part of the scope of Civil Law.
Alongside with these developments, Civil Law also began to relate differently with other areas of Private Law that deal with issues of great social density, such as Consumers Law and Labour Law.
Moreover, Civil Law and other specific areas of private law are now facing new social needs and challenges, as a result of economic globalization, digitalization and the emergence of new contracts and new forms of work, particularly in the context of digital platforms or in relation to remote work and to telework.
II. In this line of research, the CIDP intends to explore subjects where private law applies to more sensitive subjects from a social point of view, in the context of the global and digitalized world where we live today.
The diversity of these subjects requires the study of different legal areas and is only possible with the contribution of CIDP’s researchers from all those fields.
This is, therefore, one of the characteristics of this Project.
On the other hand, the CIDP´s academic background makes it possible to closely involve the students in this Project, with the aim of leading them to reflect about these issues problems at an early stage.
Finally, most of the issues addressed in this Project go beyond our national borders and should therefore be discussed worldwide. For this reason, this Project privileges international activities, that aim to bring specialists from foreign universities to the debate and allow for different perspectives on the topics to be addressed.
These characteristics justify the different lines of action of this project, which are described in the following paragraph.
LINES OF ACTION
Whitin this line of investigation, the CIDP promotes the following activities:
- Organization of courses and other training activities that develop these themes, in different legal areas, creating think-tanks and forums of reflection;
- Holding of national and international conferences and webinars on specific topics related to the socialization of Private Law;
- Holding discussion forums with students, including international Moot Courts.
PUBLICATIONS
The CIDP promotes the publishing of articles in peer review journals that address the subject of Socialization of Private Law, from different scientific perspectives and in different areas.
Moreover, the CIDP also promotes the publishing of reviews and journals on Labour Law and Consumer Law, as well as on the Welfare State and the socialization of Civil Law.
For example, CIDP is currently promoting with other partners the following publications:
- Civil Law Magazine (since 2016);
- International Journal of Labour Law (since 2021), organized and published by the Institute of Labour Law.
CONFERences
The CIDP also promotes the holding of national and international conferences, on different subjects related to this line of research.
Since 2018, the following conferences with interest in our topic are worth mentioning:
- Seminar: Labour Law, October 10, 2019, organized by the Institute of Labour Law;
- Webinar: Labour Law in Emergency Times, April 29, 2020, organized by the Institute of Labor Law;
- Luso-Brazilian Conference: Labour Law and Pandemic, February 13, 2021, organized by the Institute of Labour Law;
- Webinar: Protection of Work in Times of Covid, March 30, 2021, organized by the Institute of Labour Law;
- Luso-Spanish Webinar: Labour Challenges Post Covid;
- Seminar: The Post Covid Law, November 17, 2021, organized by the Institute of Labour Law;
- Webinar: The New Working Framework: Teleworking and Right to Disconnection, April 20, 2022, organized by the Institute of Labour Law;
- International Seminar: Improving The Working Conditions in Platform Work, (scheduled for June 22, 2022).
COURSES
In the school years 2018/2019, 2019/2020, 2020/2021 and 2021/2022, several courses were held, including:
- Postgraduate Courses in Labour Law and Social Security (organized by the Institute of Labour Law);
- Postgraduate Courses in Business and Entrepreneurial Law;
- Postgraduate Courses in Equality Law.
discussion forums with students
- Teams integrated by students and coached by CIDP researchers have participated in several editions of the European Moot Court in Labour Law - Hugo Sinzheimer Moot Court, in different European cities;
- Organization of the Moot Court of Labor Law - Hugo Sinzheimer Moot Court, by CIDP in partnership with the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon and the VdA – Law Firm (scheduled for 20-21 June 2022), which has the presence, in our School, of 12 teams from different countries and their coaches, as well as a body of judges, that integrate known international experts in Labour Law.