Rights Under a Contract

Abstract This chapter explores the legal nature of contractual rights, focusing on their fundamentally bilateral character, jurisdictional rules, and assignability. It examines the common law rule denying enforcement to third-party beneficiaries and explains how the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 creates exceptions, allowing designated third parties to enforce contractual terms. The chapter analyses the limits of third-party enforcement, defences available to promisors, and the effects of third-party rights on contracting parties, including the rules on variation and rescission. It considers how obligations may be imposed on third parties through novation or vicarious performance, and discusses contractual rights as property, including their indivisibility and relation to leases. Finally, the chapter addresses the indirect enforcement of third-party benefits, outlines established exceptions, and highlights judicial responses to the risk of leaving meritorious claims in legal black holes.