The Transformation of the Concept of the Third Party in Contractual Relations: A Comparative Study

The concept of the "third party" is among the most debated legal terms, as it carries significant legal importance, particularly in the academic domain, and this has been reflected in judicial orientations. In traditional jurisprudence, the term was understood differently from how it is conceived in modern legal thought. Previously, a third party was considered to be anyone other than the contracting parties, and this understanding remained confined within the scope of the principle of privity of contract for a period of time. However, changes in the industrial and technological fields necessitated the conclusion of a series of contracts interconnected by their subject matter or objective. This development led to a reconsideration of the notion of the third party in contractual relations. The present study seeks to clarify and analyze the impact of this conceptual transformation on the parties involved in the legal relationship. In writing my research, I relied on dividing it into two sections. In the first section, I dealt with the concept of the relativity of the effect of the contract according to the traditional concept in terms of the opinions of jurisprudence, judiciary and law on that, then moving in the second section to study the concept of the third party within the framework of the contractual family, which I adopted as a model in the study, then the conclusion.