La formation du contrat suppose la rencontre de deux ou plusieurs volontés en vue de créer des effets de droit. Elle repose sur un échange de consentements des parties, dont est a priori exclue la figure du tiers. Le tiers est, en effet, classiquement défini par la négative en opposition aux parties, comme celui qui ne peut subir les effets du contrat ni profiter de ses bénéfices, car il n’y a pasconsenti. Toutefois, la présence des tiers lors de l'élaboration du contrat n'est pas inconnue en droit positif. Mais le délitement de l'Etat tiers garant du contrat et l'avènement de la contractualisation se sont accompagnés d'une multiplication de tiers intervenant au stade de la formation du contrat.L’objet de cette étude est de démontrer que l'intervention de tiers est de plus en plus sollicitée lors de la phase d'élaboration de l'accord. Le tiers ne doit plus être considéré seulement comme étant celui qui est étranger à la volonté des parties. Il influence, voire même, contraint cette volonté. Il semble important aujourd'hui d'élargir la qualité de tiers au contrat. Les interventions de tiers au stade de la formation de l'accord, qu'elles aient pour but de protéger les intérêts particuliers des contractants et/ou l'intérêt général, constituent une limite à la volonté autonome des individus et, par conséquent, restreignent la liberté contractuelle des contractants en influençant tant la rencontre des consentements que la détermination du contenu contractuel. / The formation of the contract requires the meeting of two or more minds in order to create legal effects. It is based on an exchange of the parties consent’, from which any third party is theorically excluded. The third party is, indeed, classically negatively defined by opposition towards the parties as one that cannot suffer the contract’s effects or enjoy its benefits because it has not consented to it. However, the presence of third parties during the agreement of the terms of the contract is not unknown in positive law. But the State disintegration as a third party guarantor of the contract, and the advent of contractualization, are accompanied by a proliferation of third party interventions during the contract formation stage. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that third party interventions are increasingly requested during the formulation phase of the agreement. The third party should no longer beconsidered purely as an alien to the parties’ wills. It influences, and even, compels this will. Today it would seem important, in contract matters, to broaden the capacity of a third party. Third party interventions during the agreement formulation, whether to protect the interests of contracting parties and / or the public interest, constitute a restriction to people’s individual autonomy, and, therefore, limit contractual freedom by influencing both the meeting of theminds and the determination of contractual content.

La recherche d'une unité entre les contrats privés et les publics revient à vouloir démontrer l'existence d'un socle, d'un droit commun aux contrats privés et aux contrats publics au stade de leur formation. Cependant, si l'unité des éléments essentiels du contrat peut se révéler imparfaite entre le droit privé et le public, deux notions peuvent apporter une cohérence au phénomène juridique d'unité des contrats : la notion générale de contrat en sa qualité de principe fondateur du phénomène d'unité permet la recherche d'une définition unitaire du contrat dont l'expression est la notion de consentement ; alors que les notions d'objet et de cause se révèlent être des instruments d'identification principal et accessoire du phénomène d'unité des contrats. Ainsi, s'il existe une multitude de contrats, il n'existe qu'une notion de contrat. S'il existe une infinité d'objet, de cause et de moyen de consentir, il n'existe qu'une notion d'objet, de cause et de consentement. L'unité des contrats privés et des contrats publics est cela : la réduction d'une pluralité de notions à une notion-cadre fondamentale, la notion de contrat. / Seeking unity between private and public contracts is ultimately intended to demonstrate the existence of a base, a law common to private and public contracts, at the stage of their conclusion. However, if the unity, in terms of private and public law, of the basic elements of the contract may prove to be imperfect, two concepts may bring cohesiveness to the legal phenomenon of the unity of contracts: the general concept of contract in its role as a founding principle of the phenomenon of unity enables a uniform definition for the contract to be sought, the expression of which is the concept of consent whereas the notions of object and cause reveal themselves to be main instruments of identification, ancillary to the phenomenon of the unity of contracts. Thus, if multiple contracts exist, there only exists one concept of the contract. If there are an infinite number of objects, causes and means of consent, there is only one concept of object, cause and consent. The unity of private contracts and public contracts is this: the reduction of a multiplicity of notions into one basic framework, the concept of the contract.

To regulate and facilitate are the main functions of legal rules. These purposes are achieved by a harmonised legal system by which the law becomes identical in numerous jurisdictions. The process to unify the law of sale internationally started in the 1920s and culminated, in 1988, in the implementation of the CISG. This Convention intends to provide clarity for most international sales transactions by regulating the formation of contracts, and the rights and obligations of the seller and the buyer resulting from the contract. The CISG has these days enjoyed much ratification and influenced a number of legislation reforms worldwide. Despite the role it played during the drafting process of the CISG, the DRC has not yet ratified it. Instead, the country continued to rely, until recently, on colonial legislations which had become out-dated, and inadequate to meet modern international sales contracts requirements. The situation appears to have been improved a year ago as the effect of the adoption of OHADA law whose Commercial Act is largely inspired by the CISG. Because the introduction of OHADA law in the DRC is very recent, this study intends to assess the current state of Congolese sales law by comparing it with the CISG and South African law, which is non-CISG but modernised. The comparative study aims at establishing whether current Congolese law, as amended by OHADA law, is sufficient or has shortcomings; if it has some, it aims to identify those shortcomings, and make suggestions for their improvements. After discussion, it has been discovered that the ratification of OHADA law has significantly improved Congolese domestic sales law. Given that there remain certain unresolved shortcomings in Congolese international sales law, however, the study ends by a proposal for the accession of the DRC to the CISG in order to fill them. / Mercantile Law / LLD

To regulate and facilitate are the main functions of legal rules. These purposes are achieved by a harmonised legal system by which the law becomes identical in numerous jurisdictions. The process to unify the law of sale internationally started in the 1920s and culminated, in 1988, in the implementation of the CISG. This Convention intends to provide clarity for most international sales transactions by regulating the formation of contracts, and the rights and obligations of the seller and the buyer resulting from the contract. The CISG has these days enjoyed much ratification and influenced a number of legislation reforms worldwide. Despite the role it played during the drafting process of the CISG, the DRC has not yet ratified it. Instead, the country continued to rely, until recently, on colonial legislations which had become out-dated, and inadequate to meet modern international sales contracts requirements. The situation appears to have been improved a year ago as the effect of the adoption of OHADA law whose Commercial Act is largely inspired by the CISG. Because the introduction of OHADA law in the DRC is very recent, this study intends to assess the current state of Congolese sales law by comparing it with the CISG and South African law, which is non-CISG but modernised. The comparative study aims at establishing whether current Congolese law, as amended by OHADA law, is sufficient or has shortcomings; if it has some, it aims to identify those shortcomings, and make suggestions for their improvements. After discussion, it has been discovered that the ratification of OHADA law has significantly improved Congolese domestic sales law. Given that there remain certain unresolved shortcomings in Congolese international sales law, however, the study ends by a proposal for the accession of the DRC to the CISG in order to fill them. / Mercantile Law / LL. D.

It is universally acknowledged that international trade and cooperation have become key drivers of SMEs. Indeed, the success of SMEs in the sales sector depends upon their capacity to conquer the foreign market and compete with larger companies. Many SMEs today, in particular those in Central and West Africa, are very much aware of this reality. However, because of differences between domestic laws and their maladjustment, many African SMEs still struggle to enter the international market and compete with larger companies. It is therefore obvious that any SMEs that want to succeed in international commerce today will be called upon to confront different regulations, whether domestic, regional or international, which are often shaped according to the realities and expectations of a particular environment. The challenge today is to regulate and harmonise these different legal systems, in order to render the law identical in numerous jurisdictions. This process of unifying the law internationally, in particular the law of sale, started in 1920 and culminated in 1988, with the implementation of the CISG. This Convention, which has become the primary law for international sales contracts, endeavours to deal with this problem of differences in law between states on a global scale, by attempting to achieve a synthesis between different legislations, such as civil law, common law, socialist law, and the law regarding industrialised and Third World countries. Even though the CISG appears to be a compromise between different legal systems, the fact remains that it is not yet applicable in many countries, especially those in Central and West Africa, which are mostly still ruled by domestic and regional law, namely the OHADA. The purpose of this study is to attempt to analyse and compare the OHADA’s Uniform Act Relating to Commercial Law to the CISG, in order to identify similarities and differences between the two, and to determine, with regard to the operating mode and structure of SMEs in West and Central Africa, which one of the two legislations is more appropriate. / Private Law / LL. M.