The challenge to third party rights in contract

Any legal system which takes promises seriously would be expected to allow such promises to be enforced even if made by a contracting party to a non-contracting party, so long as the promise was seriously intended to confer enforceable rights upon that third party. After all, if a promise can be enforced outside the context of a contract (as happens when a unilateral promise is enforced), why should it not be possible for A to contract with B and, within the context of that contract, also make a promise to C. This, however, is to presuppose that the right of a third party to enforce a right given to it under a contract (a stipulatio alteri or jus quaesitum tertio as it is sometimes called) should be cast in promissory terms. As will be seen below, however, other characterisations of a directly enforceable third party right are conceivable.