Obligations Arising from Treatment Contract with Emphasis on Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR)

A treatment contract involves joint obligations for the contracting parties which are normally a patient, a physician or a health center. A precise and detailed determination of the scope of these obligations plays a crucial part in the performance of the contract and specially in securing patients’ rights. This is what the Iranian legislator has failed to address or better to say that only in some separated regulations there have been a set out of rules in regards to some obligations of physicians. On the other hand, the laws of some countries such as the Netherlands and Germany have devoted specific parts of their civil code to deal with treatment contracts. The Draft Common Frame of Reference (henceforth: the DCFR), which amounts to a draft of European prospective Civil Code, has also allocated specific provisions regarding treatment contracts in section addressing "specific contract". This study examines parties’ joint obligations in a treatment contract from the perspective of the DCFR, some European countries, and Iranian law.