The subject of this volume is ‘contracts and third parties’. Although the reader could infer from the title that the scope of the project is restricted to contract law only, that has not been the case. While going through the project and drafting the cases, the editors had some difficulty in identifying the scope of the project.

Narrowly defined, the project ‘contracts and third parties’ could be limited to third-party clauses in contracts, restricting the project to contract law alone. In this case, the contractual parties may, for example, grant a right to a third person in their contract. However, ‘contracts and third parties’ could also encompass cases where a third party may indirectly rely on a contract to which they are not a party, such as a limitation of liability clause in a related contract. In such cases, third-party rights and contract law are very much related to delictual law (unlawful acts, tort law), already expanding outside the field of contract law.

From a broader perspective, ‘contracts and third parties’ will also deal with several separate doctrines, such as agency or representation, tort law (again), property law, assignment, commercial law, insolvency law, general rules of patrimonial law and other parts of the law of obligations. This broader perspective readily appears if a third party is involved in the conclusion or execution of a contract.