Balancing Predictability and Flexibility in Contract Negotiation and Drafting

Legal sociologist Yves Dezalay famously framed a shift in contract negotiation in the 1990s as an increase in the length of contracts, at least in the globalized sphere inhabited by multinational corporations. He argued that the language of the contracts was becoming more detailed in order to create more of the rules that the transaction would be subject to.This practice displaced national law because the contract contained rules that contradicted government regulation, and the contract's arbitration clause would allow the parties to resolve contractual disputes without going to courts that might apply the countervailing law. In contrast, international commodity trading contracts require interactopm between the language of the contract and the actions of negotiation and constant renegotiation of the terms.