ABSTRACT
The rule of law is the normative center of the epistemic community of law(yers) which has shaped and informed the perception of the value of law across the global political economy in the last fifty or more years. This community works to reinforce the social role and value of the law through its professional activities and networks. This chapter focuses on the interaction between the rule of law and contract: the norm of the rule of law offers contract support for its legal form as an agreement between equals, while contract offers the rule of law a mechanism by which its normative generality can be established beyond the limits of formalized public law. To understand the power of the norms of the rule of law beyond the realm of formalized law, this chapter explores how the mechanisms of contract both respond to the rule of law's normative agenda, but also carry this agenda past the limits of formalized legality.
