Contractual Ecosystems: the Consumer Law Experience

Abstract

This study introduces the concept of contractual ecosystems to understand multifaceted obligational frameworks with a single, broad social function. They are sets of legal acts and transactions that go beyond the definition of a contractual network. The concept arises from a search for a legal framework for what, in politics and economics, especially in the last decade, has been commonly referred to as "social ecosystems”. It indicates the complex of agents and relationships aimed at some collective achievement with diffuse effects. It reflects the overarching logic of the large frameworks of legal relations outlined in Article 170 of the Federal Constitution of Brazil. As its main reference point, the concept is based on consumer law experience, especially with its extended protection to people equivalent to consumers, considered individually, collectively and diffusely; and with the objective and solidary responsibilities of the supply chain. It also apprehends from consumer law the application of the principles of good faith and the social function of contracts to broad business environments, which allows contracts to be thought of as relational, in continuity, and collectivized, subject to socio-environmental safeguards.