• European Contract Law and the Capabilities Approach: On Distributive Responsibility for Contract Law

LL.B University of Amsterdam; Bsc. IBA Erasmus University Rotterdam; LL.M. University of Amsterdam; PhD University of Amsterdam.

Lyn Tjon Soei Len is a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for the Study of European Contract Law at the University of Amsterdam, within the research theme: The legitimacy of postnational private law (which follows up on the work of the previous research program 2009-2011: 'European contract law, social justice and democracy'). 

In her doctoral thesis, 'The Effects of Contracts Beyond Frontiers. A Capabilities Perspective on Externalities and Contract law in Europe', she develops a theoretical normative framework for minimum contractual justice, as it relates to contractual relations affecting others elsewhere (globally). This work extends Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach, as a minimum standard of social justice, to the realm of contract law and to questions of contractual immorality and invalidity. 

Her research agenda is centered on issues of social and economic inequality examined through private law inquiries. Her work is generally concerned with theoretical questions concerning the relationship between theories of justice and contract (private) law, as well as questions of global justice and gender inequality specifically. 

Her current post-doc project Consuming Contested Commodities explores assumptions of gender neutrality in private law. 

Publications on the topic of the thesis: The Effects of Contracts Beyond Frontiers. A Capabilities Perspective on Externalities and Contract Law in Europe

Lyn has argued that the normative requirements of Nussbaum's minimum standard of justice extend to contract law in a paper that can be found under the following link:

Lyn has argued that contracts for goods made under deplorable production conditions (sweatshops) are immoral and invalid under contract law in the Netherlands in an op-ed in the 'Volkskrant' (a Dutch newspaper) that can be found under the following link: 

• 'Als Apple-consument is het nu toch wat ongemakkelijk naar je bureaublad kijken'

• Geen nevenwerkzaamheden