Obligations and Contracts in Global Perspective

The law of obligations and contracts is one of the oldest and at the same time most dynamic areas of the legal system, since it is the convergence of historical tradition, dogmatic principles and new economic and social realities that permanently transform people’s lives. In Chile, the Civil Code of 1855, a monumental work of Andrés Bello, laid the foundations of a contractual system inspired by Roman law and the French Civil Code, which for more than a century served as a stable framework for the regulation of private relations. However, the changes that society has undergone in recent decades, as a result of globalization, the expansion of international trade, the digitalization of the economy and the strengthening of fundamental rights, have called into question the classic categories of civil law, forcing a rethinking of its foundations in the light of new principles.