Contract Law in Changing Times: Asian Perspectives on Pacta Sunt Servanda

This collection of essays provides a rich and contemporary discussion of the principle of pacta sunt servanda. This principle, which requires that valid agreements are to be honoured, is a cornerstone of contract law. Focusing on contributions from Asia, this book shows that, despite its natural and universal appeal, the pacta sunt servanda principle is neither absolute nor immutable. Exceptions to the binding force of contract must be available in limited circumstances to avoid hardship and unfairness.

This book offers readers new comparative perspectives on the appropriate balance between contractual certainty and flexibility in an era of social instability. Expert authors, mostly from East and Southeast Asia, explore when their domestic legal systems allow exceptions from the binding force of contracts. Doctrines discussed include impossibility, frustration, change of circumstance, force majeure, illegality as well as rights of withdrawal. Other chapters consider the importance of the pacta principle in international law. The challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic feature strongly in the majority of contributions.

Normann Witzleb is an associate professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law, where he chairs the Obligations Lab Asia in the Centre for Comparative and Transnational Law. He is also an adjunct associate professor at Monash University Australia, Faculty of Law.

Professor Witzleb has published widely on private law, in particular torts and remedies, as well as on privacy and data protection law.