International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation ■ Vol. 2, 2021 87
other religious legal and quasi-legal
instruments.
II. Thinking About the Billion-Year
Contract
In this section, I seek to establish how we
ought to think about the billion year-contract.
I suggest that this contract is both much more
and much less than it appears.
Later in this section, I address the labelling of
the billion-year contract as a contract. This
taxonomy must be analysed because the word
contract carries with it a legal meaning,
which is likely misused. I first address,
however, how the billion-year contract can be
thought of as a contract-like instrument.
Legal definitions of the contract have
focussed on its functional characteristics. The
civilian law student, when prompted with the
phrase “a contract is” will almost
mechanically respond this way:
A contract is an agreement of wills by
which one or several persons obligate
themselves to one or several other
persons to perform a prestation.
Contracts may be divided into contracts
of adhesion and contracts by mutual
agreement, synallagmatic [reciprocal]
and unilateral contracts, onerous and
gratuitous contracts, commutative and
aleatory contracts, and contracts of
instantaneous performance or of
successive performance they may also be
consumer contracts.xl
Similarly, in the common law case of Rose &
Frank Co v JR Crompton &Bros Ltd,xli we
are told that
To create a contract there must be a
common intention of the parties to enter
into legal obligations, mutually
communicated expressly or impliedly.
Such an intention ordinarily will be
inferred when parties enter into an
agreement which in other respects
conforms to the rules of law as to the
formation of contracts. It may be
negatived impliedly by the nature of the
agreed promise or promises, as in the case
of offer and acceptance of hospitality, or
of some agreements made in the course of
family life between members of a
family[.]
These functional definitions fail to ask more
foundational questions about and offer a
basis for understanding the more
foundational characteristics of contracts.
Functional characteristics are, of course, very
important to the majority of cases in which
the role of the judge is to determine whether
a certain document constitutes a contract. To
do so, the judge must know what the
characteristics of a contract are and apply a
multistep test to detect its existence. When
we are attempting to understand a
nontraditional document that calls itself a
contract, however, it is more useful to ask
ourselves why people enter into contracts,
and what the contract represents in their lives
and in society. Contracts, after all, are an
important part of everyday life. A contract is
a fundamental instrument that we use to order
our lives. By its fundamentality, the contract
brings us back to even more foundational
elements of the human experience, such as
otherness, interaction, fear, and uncertainty.
In a previous paper, I argued that children’s
literature is a fundamental source of law. I
concluded as follows:
Law is, at its core, about rules. Rules
guide our behaviour, to help us pursue
and hopefully find happiness. They help
us avoid mistakes and pain. They help
order our lives and our social interactions.
Rules are our way to interact with and
comprehend others, the world we live in,
and, ultimately, ourselves. They emerge
from our very existence—from our
interactions with our environment. Rules
are about the foundational blocks of the
human experience: otherness, agency,
other religious legal and quasi-legal
instruments.
II. Thinking About the Billion-Year
Contract
In this section, I seek to establish how we
ought to think about the billion year-contract.
I suggest that this contract is both much more
and much less than it appears.
Later in this section, I address the labelling of
the billion-year contract as a contract. This
taxonomy must be analysed because the word
contract carries with it a legal meaning,
which is likely misused. I first address,
however, how the billion-year contract can be
thought of as a contract-like instrument.
Legal definitions of the contract have
focussed on its functional characteristics. The
civilian law student, when prompted with the
phrase “a contract is” will almost
mechanically respond this way:
A contract is an agreement of wills by
which one or several persons obligate
themselves to one or several other
persons to perform a prestation.
Contracts may be divided into contracts
of adhesion and contracts by mutual
agreement, synallagmatic [reciprocal]
and unilateral contracts, onerous and
gratuitous contracts, commutative and
aleatory contracts, and contracts of
instantaneous performance or of
successive performance they may also be
consumer contracts.xl
Similarly, in the common law case of Rose &
Frank Co v JR Crompton &Bros Ltd,xli we
are told that
To create a contract there must be a
common intention of the parties to enter
into legal obligations, mutually
communicated expressly or impliedly.
Such an intention ordinarily will be
inferred when parties enter into an
agreement which in other respects
conforms to the rules of law as to the
formation of contracts. It may be
negatived impliedly by the nature of the
agreed promise or promises, as in the case
of offer and acceptance of hospitality, or
of some agreements made in the course of
family life between members of a
family[.]
These functional definitions fail to ask more
foundational questions about and offer a
basis for understanding the more
foundational characteristics of contracts.
Functional characteristics are, of course, very
important to the majority of cases in which
the role of the judge is to determine whether
a certain document constitutes a contract. To
do so, the judge must know what the
characteristics of a contract are and apply a
multistep test to detect its existence. When
we are attempting to understand a
nontraditional document that calls itself a
contract, however, it is more useful to ask
ourselves why people enter into contracts,
and what the contract represents in their lives
and in society. Contracts, after all, are an
important part of everyday life. A contract is
a fundamental instrument that we use to order
our lives. By its fundamentality, the contract
brings us back to even more foundational
elements of the human experience, such as
otherness, interaction, fear, and uncertainty.
In a previous paper, I argued that children’s
literature is a fundamental source of law. I
concluded as follows:
Law is, at its core, about rules. Rules
guide our behaviour, to help us pursue
and hopefully find happiness. They help
us avoid mistakes and pain. They help
order our lives and our social interactions.
Rules are our way to interact with and
comprehend others, the world we live in,
and, ultimately, ourselves. They emerge
from our very existence—from our
interactions with our environment. Rules
are about the foundational blocks of the
human experience: otherness, agency,
