Amsterdam Centre For Transformative Private Law (Act)

At the Amsterdam Centre for Transformative Private Law (ACT) we explore the role of private law in the making of society. Private law is always transformative: Every articulation of rights and duties - enabling some forms of action and cooperation as opposed to others - always entails a political choice, with vast impacts on the economy and society. The critical-analytical project behind Transformative Private Law works to grasp how contemporary categories of private law (e.g. contract, property, corporation, tort) and the principles on which they are based (such as privity of contracts, shareholder primacy, causality, liability) empower some actors over others and eventually entrench outcomes that are harmful or unjust. By identifying the ways in which private law entrenches injustice, or aggravates societal challenges, we aim to identify sites of intervention and articulate pathways to alternative private law frameworks. This joint academic ambition is addressed through pluralistic methodological approaches represented within ACT, including both robust doctrinal analysis and transdisciplinary engagements with, for instance, philosophy, social theory, political economy, economics or sociology. ACT welcomes a multiplicity of different perspectives and (counter)narratives and especially those that are often unheard of, or remain significantly underexposed.