Causa e referenti obiettivi esterni

Once having defined the causa of an agreement (and, in general, of a juridical act, i.e. “negozio giuridico”) as its effective and objective purpose – the latter being the attitude of an act to realize a specific balance of interests (“causa concreta”) – the thesis is aimed at showing that the causa can be grounded (also) upon objective external referents, i.e. elements or circumstances which are able to constitute and influence the specific purpose of an act from an objective point of view, although they cannot per se be deduced from the subject matter (“oggetto”) and structure of the juridical act at hand. Such referents may consist in effects of different acts, or in facts and circumstances, including the context in which the act is concluded and will be performed. Through an analysis of different juridical figures – with particular regard to links between agreements, atypical gratuitous acts and “pagamento traslativo”, guarantees and unilateral obligations to keep harmless, and acts of waiver – the attention is focused on the relevance of concurrence of interests (also based on external referents) in order to assess the real and effective causa, even in absence of any exchange of counterperformances (“sinallagma”) or of any purpose of liberality. In light of the above, the thesis concludes dealing with some applicative consequences of the above-mentioned principles, with particular regard, on one side, to the assessment of validity and protectability of juridical acts and, on the other side, to the possibility to apply the remedies related to the termination of agreements when an external objective referent fails, even if the involved juridical act does not provide mutual counterperformances.