Private Law Theory Meets the Law of Work
New York University School of Law on September 10-11, 2021
Labor and employment law, or the law of work, seems to be situated at the heart of private law, at least in its intuitive understanding as the law that governs our interpersonal relationships as individuals (rather than as citizens). Yet contemporary private law theory pays little attention to employment and labor law. Issues like the implications of private ownership of the means of production, the problem of unequal bargaining power and consent within the employment contract, or the proper understanding of assumption of risk or restraint of competition among workers no longer occupy most theorists of property, contract, and tort law.
Scholars of labor and employment law similarly steer clear of the questions that animate private law theory. Since the early 20th century, they have tended to understand private law as “the other” against which their field had struggled for independence. Some scholars of the law of work would align themselves with public law, centering issues of liberty, equality, justice, and democracy. Most tend to regard their field, and the subject of work itself, as sui generis and as defying the public law-private law dichotomy.
We think that this predicament raises questions and potentially points to missed opportunities. The dramatic transformation of work in recent years and private law theory’s recent renaissance make a reconsideration of the distance between the fields particularly timely. The NYU School of Law and The Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Tel-Aviv University will thus convene a conference on Private Law Theory Meets the Law of Work at NYU in September, 2021. The conference will bring together scholars from both fields to present and discuss papers that explore this state of mutual disregard and the potential for fruitful dialogue.
Co- Sponsored with NYU Law, by The Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Tel Aviv University, and by TAU Law Cegla Center for Interdisciplinary Research. Papers presented at the conference will be published in a forthcoming special issue of TAU Law leading periodical, Theoretical Inquiries in Law (TIL)
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