Abstract
No doctrine of English contract law is as controversial as the doctrine of frustration. Scholars have endeavored to explain or rationalize the doctrine either from the efficiency perspective or from the justice perspective. Neither approach is, however, promising for explaining the current status of the law or guiding meaningful law reforms. The efficiency approach would compel judges to move beyond their familiar chartered water of contract liability rules or may require information judges do not have during their adjudication. The justice perspective is equally problematic if not more difficult. While the key idea behind private law is corrective justice, the very decision judges have to make on whether a contract has been frustrated is based on distributive justice. When distributive justice is forced into the private law of contracts, the coherence or rationale of private contract law is eroded. This paper explains the shaky foundation of the English doctrine of frustration. It also considers ways of improving the theoretical foundation of the doctrine.
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