The Importance of Force Majeure in Various Jurisdictions and Its Contemporary Challenges

The Force Majeure doctrine is one of the important legal instruments in modern private law, which ensures the fair distribution of liability rights of the contracting parties, when the performance of the obligations becomes impossible due to events beyond the parties’ control. Its legal concept varies substantially in different jurisdictions: in English law it is fully regulated by contract law, the French model perceives it as a statutory category, German law links force majeure to the doctrine of hardship and American law defines it by adding impossibility, impracticability and frustration of purpose. These differences allow for different legal assessments and raise many questions about a universal and common definition. The importance of force majeure in recent times has particularly emerged during the pandemic. Moreover, the significance of its scope has also been particularly evident in parallel with technological developments. The indicated factors have significantly changed the list of cases that can be considered as Force Majeure in specific cases which raised the question about how efficiently the classical doctrine responds to modern risks. The aim of the article is to present the legal meaning of Force Majeure, its substantive elements and aspects, differences between jurisdictions and analysis of contemporary challenges. The article presents the reasons for the modernization of Force Majeure provisions, how and why the boundaries of its application are changing in modern context and why it is necessary to systematize the approaches existing in different jurisdictions. It is important to emphasize that the practical significance of force majeure shall only be fully functional if legal systems adequately adapt to technological, economic and climate changes.