In today's complex society, citizens and institutions are increasingly turning to  private law as a regulatory mechanism for interpersonal and societal problems and issues. In the process, various subfields of private law are touched upon, as well as different remedies. Non-contractual liability law, for example, no longer deals exclusively with actions for damages between the direct perpetrator of damage and the injured party, but increasingly also with "secondary liability." Examples of secondary liability include the existence and scope of duties of care owed by companies for damage caused by third parties with whom the company has a contractual relationship.

Against the ongoing “juridification” of human relations, traditional distinctions between subfields of private law, such as (extra)contractual liability law, corporate law and family law, are increasingly being crossed. Indeed, practice turns out to be more fluid than these distinctions suggest. Judges, tasked as they are to both apply and develop private law, are also increasingly being asked to decide disputes that not only may happen to be "cross-jurisdictional," but whose implications are also "cross-case" and far-reaching. Think of the many climate cases by various NGOs against European states and multinationals. Another example is the cutting of family ties (in cases such as adoption, surrogacy and colonialism), where liability and family law matters come together.

Consistent with these and various private law disputes is that they constantly revolve around relationships between citizens or citizens and agencies, where the main question is what claims citizens in fact have and can rely on. Not only in corporate law or common liability law, but also, for example, in family law matters. There is thus some overlap between areas of law in which central concepts such as "claims," "remedies," "expectations" and "care" come into play. For example, with regard to a fair legal system for the division of finances between spouses, the ethics of care play an important role. These intersections present challenges but also opportunities for a comprehensive approach to legal issues.

At ACT, we therefore examine the intersection of various subfields within private law with a focus on these central concepts. We conduct research into the content and formation of healthcare obligations, their scope and the remedies associated with them. This includes not only the insights provided by legal practice, but also a focus on more fundamental questions of a normative nature. For example, the question of whether one should be obliged to provide certain care and, if so, to whom and why? To answer these questions, attention is always paid to the social context in which law, and therefore private law, operates. After all, law does not exist in a vacuum. Understanding the relationship between duties of care, entitlements and available remedies is critical to a just and balanced legal system and a forward-looking society.