HESSELINK is a serious risk that those rules will not be sufficiently socialand protective as far as weaker parties are concerned, as a result of the argument that such rules would otherwise not fit in with major international commercial contracts. The end result may then be that general contract law will be mainly autonomy-based and hardly protective at all. Indeed, it seems worry ing that the PECl are very similar to the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercal Contracts, which are exclusively intended for commercial contracts. Does this mean that the PECl have applied business logic to consumers? 18 should general contract aw be neutral, and should the protective rules(in protection of categories which are presumed to be weaker, like consumers, employees, tenants)be regarded as special private law, as opposed to general private law, which should be placed elsewhere(maybe even outside the code)? However, this approach also has certa in bear its risks. In the first place, there is no such thing as neutral general contract aw. autonomy based contract law is not neutral but Liberal (in the European sense), that is Conservative, or right wing, and it is highly questionable whether today s general contract law should be based exclusively or ma inly on party autonomy 9. Secondly, a system where all the protective rules are moved into(the)special part(s)makes the autonomy-based general contract law of little re levance since, on the one hand, the multinationals and other strong commercal parties will make their own contractual arrangements in long and detailed contracts for every imaginable contingency and will therefore probably find the default rules conta ned in the code of general contract law of little use for their Irposes, whereas, on the other hand, for consumers, employees, tenants and other weaker parties many(or even most)of these rules would not be applicable whereas the important rules would be found in the Consumer, Labour or Housing(part of the) Code Concluding, from both a practical and a political perspective it is not all that obvious whether European private law should be unitary as far as the status of parties is concerned. In any case, a classical civil code which conta ins only general private law does not seem to be the obvious structure for framing the needs of European citizens and business CHAO-DUIVIS EN H.A. W. VERMEULEN(EDS ) Beginselen van contractenrecht: Opstellen aangeboden aan B W M Nieskens-sphonding, Deventer 2000; CHRISTOPHE JAMN, Plaidoyer pour le soldarime contractual, n: Gilles Goubeaux et al (ed ) Etudes offertes a Jacques Ghest: le contrat au debutdu Xe sieck, Paris 2001, and my The Politics of European Contract Law. Who Has an Interest in What Kind of Contract Law for Europe?, cited above, footnote 2. In their Preface and Introduction the PECL frequently refer t busness. See eg. p.xXv international business community See dUNCAn KENNEDY, The Political Stakes n Merely Technical Issues of Contract Law ,10ERPL(2002), pp 7-28. See further below, VIllHESSELINK 6 is a serious risk that those rules will not be sufficiently social and protective as far as weaker parties are concerned, as a result of the argument that such rules would otherwise not fit in with major international commercial contracts. The end result may then be that general contract law will be mainly autonomy-based and hardly protective at all. Indeed, it seems worrying that the PECL are very similar to the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, which are exclusively intended for commercial contracts. Does this mean that the PECL have applied business logic to consumers?18 . Or should general contract law be neutral , and should the protective rules (in protection of categories which are presumed to be weaker, like consumers, employees, tenants) be regarded as special private law, as opposed to general private law, which should be placed elsewhere (maybe even outside the code)? However, this approach also has certain bear its risks. In the first place, there is no such thing as neutral general contract law. Autonomy based contract law is not neutral but Liberal (in the European sense), that is Conservative, or right wing , and it is highly questionable whether today s general contract law should be based exclusively or mainly on party autonomy19. Secondly, a system where all the protective rules are moved into (the) special part(s) makes the autonomy-based general contract law of little relevance since, on the one hand, the multinationals and other strong commercial parties will make their own contractual arrangements in long and detailed contracts for every imaginable contingency and will therefore probably find the default rules contained in the code of general contract law of little use for their purposes, whereas, on the other hand, for consumers, employees, tenants and other weaker parties many (or even most) of these rules would not be applicable whereas the important rules would be found in the Consumer, Labour or Housing (part of the) Code. Concluding, from both a practical and a political perspective it is not all that obvious whether European private law should be unitary as far as the status of parties is concerned. In any case, a classical civil code which contains only general private law does not seem to be the obvious structure for framing the needs of European citizens and business. CHAO-DUIVIS EN H.A.W. VERMEULEN (EDS.), Beginselen van contractenrecht: Opstellen aangeboden aan B.W.M. Nieskens-Isphording, Deventer 2000; CHRISTOPHE JAMIN, Plaidoyer pour le solidarisme contractuel , in: Gilles Goubeaux et al. (ed.), Études offertes à Jacques Ghestin; Le contrat au début du XXIe siècle, Paris 2001, and my The Politics of European Contract Law: Who Has an Interest in What Kind of Contract Law for Europe? , cited above, footnote 2. 18. In their Preface and Introduction the PECL frequently refer to business. See e.g. p. xxv ( international business community ). 19. See DUNCAN KENNEDY, The Political Stakes in Merely Technical Issues of Contract Law ,10 ERPL (2002), pp. 7-28. See further below, VIII