Contract Rules Research Articles

The Unidroit Principles of International Commercial Contracts: potential for greater use in the Middle East and North Africa

Abstract The International Institute for the Unification of Private Law’s (Unidroit) Principles of International Commercial Contracts (UPICC) provide a uniform international instrument setting out general rules for international commercial contracts as an alternative to the State law-centred approach to contracting and dispute resolution. While the UPICC are well known among academics and frequently referred to in practice in many regions of the world including Europe, Latin America, and Asia, they are applied far less often in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This is in spite of the fact that their use appears to be widely permissible under MENA States’ domestic legislation, and international trade involvement provides opportunities for them to be applied productively. The reasons for less usage in the MENA region are manifold and include, among others, a judicial tendency to apply domestic law, the hierarchy between the Islamic Sharia and lex mercatoria, the limited involvement of experts from the MENA region in the elaboration of the UPICC and their subsequent promotion, and limited linguistic accessibility. Potential advantages of greater usage include the promotion of fair and harmonized contract practices and facilitating the resolution of cross-border private legal conflicts as well as the UPICC’s use as a model and reference for modernization and harmonization of contract law across the region and beyond. This article examines the use of the UPICC in MENA and the potential for facilitating their future impact in the region, focusing on Arab jurisdictions influenced by Islamic law.

Changes of Paradigm in Private International Law of Contracts – A high-level comparison between 1989 and 2024, with tribute to the Unidroit Principles, the development of arbitration law and to Simplified Global Contracting

The article on German private law of contracts compares the state of private international law in Germany in 1989 with its state today, in 2024. It demonstrates a change of paradigm by looking at six selected parameters of relevance: (i) the respect of constitutional rights and European fundamental freedoms, (ii) the unitarian European character of private international law of contracts, subject to treaties, (iii) the dissemination of the CISG, (iv) the emergence of the the Unidroit Principles as a sound system of general principles and rules of international commercial contracts, (v) the development of international arbitration, and (vi) the emergence of internet and data platform based comparative legal research. Regarding the traditional private international law of contracts, as applied by European courts (of member states of the European Union), the author observes that more European uniformity has come at the cost of complexity. At the same time, the emergence and dissemination of the Unidroit Principles – described as “the biggest achievement of the international legal society since the year 534” – has enabled Simplified Global Contracting (i.e. the choice of the Unidroit Principles in combination with an arbitration clause) and thereby more freedom on a global level.

Intelligent identification of risks in construction contract clauses based on semantic reasoning

Purpose The number of construction dispute cases has surged in recent years. The effective exploration and management of risks associated with construction contracts helps to directly enhance the overall project performance. The existing approaches to identify the risks associated with construction project contracts have a heavy reliance on manual review techniques, which are inefficient and highly restricted by personnel experience. The existing intelligent approaches only work for the contract query and storage. Hence, it is necessary to improve the intelligence level for contract risk management. This study aims to propose a novel method for the intelligent identification of risks in construction contract clauses based on natural language processing.Design/methodology/approach This proposed method can formalize the linguistic logic and semantic information of contract clauses into multiple triples and transform the structural processing results of general clauses in a construction contract into rights and interests rules for risk review. In addition, the core semantic information of special clauses in a construction contract, rights and interests rules are used for semantic conflict detection. Finally, this study achieves the intelligent risk identification of construction contract clauses.Findings The method is verified by selecting several construction contracts that had been applied in engineering contracting as a corpus. The results showed a high level of accuracy and applicability of the proposed method.Originality/value This novel method can identify the risks in contract clauses with complex syntactic structures and realize rule extension according to the semantic relation network of the ontology. It can support efficient contract review and assist the decision-making process in contract risk management.

Contract as Vow or Oath

Abstract Many scholars and judges attempt to harmonize legal practices of contracting with the social practice of promising in ordinary life. This article explores an alternative genealogy of contract in traditional social practices that track many of contract's core norms: taking vows and oaths. Without denying that promissory morality infiltrates modern contract, contract-as-vow-or-oath can expose by way of a supplementary account why some contract rules work as they do and can take some pressure off of a more unitary promissory theory in justifying, explicating, and reforming contract law.

Learning from a black box

We introduce a learning model in which the decision maker does not know how recommendations are generated, called the contraction rule. We present behavioral postulates that characterize it. The contraction rule can be uniquely identified and reveals how the decision maker interprets and how much she trusts the recommendation. In a dynamic stationary setting, we show that the contraction rule is not dominated by completely following recommendations and is incompatible with a property called compliance with balanced recommendations. Following this negative result, we demonstrate that the contraction rule may generate and reinforce recency bias and disagreement.

Leveraging lightweight blockchain for secure collaborative computing in UAV Ad-Hoc Networks

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Ad-Hoc Networks (UANET) enable collaborative work among UAVs for versatile task execution, but they face security challenges due to physical vulnerabilities, software issues, and dynamic wireless networks. This paper proposes a secure collaborative computing framework based on blockchain technology. Specifically, we first design a lightweight blockchain scheme suitable for UANET and present an improved Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) consensus algorithm based on trust evaluation, aiming to reduce consensus overhead and establish trust relationships among UAVs. Furthermore, we devise a smart contract-based UAV task allocation strategy that considers both task execution efficiency and offloading security. This strategy enables UAVs to make optimal task-offloading decisions and facilitates collaborative computing according to smart contract rules. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed consensus algorithm reduces average consensus latency by 47% and message count by 76% compared to PBFT-based algorithms. Additionally, the task allocation strategy decreases task costs by 48% compared to local computing strategies, achieving efficient and secure collaboration among UAVs in UANET. The real-world experiments with a UAV swarm further validate the efficiency and security of our framework, confirming its practical applicability in UANET.

Application of Computational Law and Artificial Intelligence Methods for Sharia Compliance Analysis of E-Waste Management Systems Based on Blockchain

This paper aims to 1) develop a methodology using computational law and blockchain technology to ensure Sharia compliance in e-waste management systems; 2) propose a conceptual model for a Sharia blockchain platform enabling compliance monitoring and verification; and 3) formulate recommendations to facilitate real-world implementation. The study employs a conceptual approach using inductive analysis of Sharia principles, deductive reasoning, and systems modeling to formulate design requirements and components for a blockchain platform that can enable transparent, tamper-proof monitoring and control of e-waste handling in accordance with Islamic law. Firstly, analysis reveals five key criteria for Sharia compliance in e-waste management and how blockchain, smart contracts, and AI can address these. A comprehensive compliance assurance methodology leveraging these technologies is proposed. Secondly, a conceptual model is delineated for a multipurpose Sharia blockchain platform encompassing consensus, cryptography, smart contract rule engines, and AI analytics. Thirdly, recommendations are synthesized covering technological, regulatory, economic, infrastructure, and social factors needed to enable real-world implementation. This pioneering research bridges Sharia law, sustainability, and emerging technologies to offer culturally attuned e-waste management solutions. The methodology, conceptual models, and practical framework devised inform development of next-generation systems for values-aligned compliance assurance, with potential impact extending beyond the realm of e-waste contexts.

Pricing Personalised Drugs: Comparing Indication Value Based Prices with Performance Based Schemes

Abstract Price strategies are essential to balance timely access to drugs with expenditure containment. This is especially true for personalised drugs, whose effectiveness is heterogeneous across patients. For these drugs, some authors suggest to use Indication Based Price schemes (IBPs), while others argue that Performance-Based managed entry Agreements (PBAs) are more appropriate. We develop a theoretical model to compare the welfare properties of IBPs and PBAs in an environment where effectiveness is uncertain. The manufacturer observes heterogeneity in patients responses, but this information may be non verifiable. By contrast, the regulator can only observe data presented for listing purposes. We show that IBPs may allow to treat the efficient number of patients only if the social value of the drug is entirely appropriated by the manufacturer. PBAs may allow a fairer distribution of the social value, but their success depends on the contract rules and on the degree of uncertainty.

Smart Contract Design Pattern for Processing Logically Coherent Transaction Types

Recent research shows that the source code of smart contracts is often cloned. The processing of related types of transactions in blockchain networks results in the implementation of many similar smart contracts. The rules verifying transactions are therefore duplicated many times. The article introduces the AdapT v2.0 smart contract design pattern. The design pattern employs a distinct configuration for each transaction type, and verification rule objects are shared among configurations. The redundancy of logical conditions was eliminated at two levels. Firstly, it is possible to combine similar smart contracts into one. Secondly, a configuration in a smart contract reuses verification rule objects at runtime. As a result, only one object is instantiated for each verification rule. It allows for the effective use of operating memory by the smart contract. The article presents the implementation of the pattern using object-oriented and functional programming mechanisms. Applying the pattern ensures the self-adaptability of a smart contract to any number of transaction types. The performance tests were carried out for various numbers of verification rules in a smart contract and a different number of checked transactions. The obtained evaluation time of 10,000,000 transactions is less than 0.25 s.

مقترح نظام اداري لقواعد اختيار اسموب التنفيذ في مشاريع قطاع التشييد في العراق

Among the most important problems which faced the new approach is the wide use of old approach , particularly the traditional approach ( general contractor ) and the bill of quantity contract, and this were commonly used in the course of the application of fast – track approach in spite of unfulfilling the execution requirements for the fast – track , so It became necessary to look for certain contract rules to be used as a substitute suited all conditions and cases after concluding lessons from the local experiments in rebuilding issues . This research aims at analyzing the subject of shortening time factor taking in consideration the effect all the effective factors which leads to increase the cost and time A scientific methodology was followed in both theoretical and practical phases of the study . A detailed statistical analysis of the study was incorporated using questionnaire and interview method to evaluate the effective factors directly or indirectly on fast – track approach.

IMPLEMENTASI KAIDAH AL-KHARAJ BI-ADDHAMAN DALAM PEMBIAYAAN SINDIKASI SYARIAH DALAM PERSPEKTIF HUKUM EKONOMI SYARIAH

The goal of this study is to describe the application of the Al-Kharaj Bidhdhaman rule, which specifies who bears the risk and who is entitled to a well-known benefit in sharia business contracts, particularly when applied in syndicated financing carried out by financial institutions as viewed through the lens of sharia economic law. This is a library study that employs qualitative descriptive research methods. Secondary data from books, journals, and other research results are used by researchers to describe the rules in sharia business contracts, also known as legal maxims, and theories about syndicated financing in financial institutions such as banks, which are then normatively analyzed in accordance with laws and regulations. According to the study's findings, the al-Kharaj Bidhdhaman Rule is also a very important rule in syndicated financing-based business activities at Islamic Banks, which is implemented in the agreed clauses in the contract used by customers, bank leaders, and participants of sharia syndicated financing, where the profits obtained by the parties are adjusted to the value of the syndicated participants' capital and the value of the syndicated participants' capital In mudharabah and musharakah-based contracts, the same value is applied for responsibility for the emergence of risks, including losses, which are, of course, excluded if they occur due to force majeure.

On the International Unification of Rules on International Commercial Contracts

The globalization of trade is influencing the development of commercial legislation by unifying the rules of international commercial contracts internationally, and the ascent of China is imperative for the global community and an inevitable consequence of ongoing advancements in international business. In terms of practical achievements, it has effectively promoted and safeguarded the progress of the worldwide economy. In an effort to facilitate the advancement of worldwide standardization in regulations pertaining to global matters and fully utilize its potential, It is crucial to possess a comprehensive comprehension of the notions and attributes associated with it, and to analyse the problems that exist in the process of its implementation. In addition, by combining the actual situation of specific countries, we can also better understand the current situation of the unification of international commercial contract rules in practice, which is more conducive to its implementation and improvement. Accordingly, this paper will make full use of the research methods of literature study and comparative analysis to discuss the above issues by analyzing the theoretical studies and legislative overviews of different countries.

TOWARDS STANDARDIZED REGULATIONS FOR BLOCK CHAIN SMART CONTRACTS: INSIGHTS FROM DELPHI AND SWARA ANALYSIS

The rise of digital currency and the public ledger Block Chain has led to the development of a new type of electronic contract known as "smart contracts." For these contracts to be considered valid, they must adhere to traditional contract rules and be concluded without any impediments. Once written, encrypted, and signed, smart contracts are recorded in the Block Chain Ledger, providing transparent and secure record-keeping. Smart contracts offer several benefits, including their ability to execute automatically without requiring human intervention, their provision of public visibility of contract provisions on the Block Chain, their avoidance of financial crimes like Money Laundering, and their prevention of contract abuses. However, disputes arising from smart contracts still require human intervention, presenting unique challenges in enforcing these contracts, such as evidentiary issues, enforceability of waivers of defenses, and jurisdictional and choice-of-law considerations. Due to the novel nature of smart contracts, there are currently no standardized regulations that apply to them. Countries that have approved them have turned to customary law to legitimize their use. The Delphi method was used to identify critical success factors for applying blockchain transactions in a manufacturing company. Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) was then utilized to determine the most influential factors. The proposed methodology was implemented, and results show that the most influential factors for the successful application of blockchain transactions as smart contracts in a manufacturing company are: turnover, the counter argument, vision, components for building, and system outcome quality. Conversely, connections with government entities and subcontractors, and the guarantee of quality have the least influence on successful implementation. These findings can contribute to the development of a legal framework for smart contracts in a manufacturing company.

Anchored belief updating from recommendations

We study a belief updating behavior in a framework where information is presented as a recommendation from a menu of actions. We introduce a property on belief updating called order independence of recommendations, which is analogous to the Bayes’ Rule property of path independence of signals. We show that order independence and the properties that characterize the contraction rule of Ke et al. (2021) lead to an impossibility result on the general domain of recommendations. We then show that such a rule exists if and only if the domain is substantially restricted. Lastly, we propose the anchored contraction rule, which satisfies order independence on the general domain. The anchored contraction rule gives a theoretical ground for the asymmetric confirmation bias in the general domain of recommendations that a belief is updated if and only if information supports an ideal point.

On the origins of developmental robustness: modeling buffering mechanisms against cell-level noise.

During development, cells are subject to stochastic fluctuations in their positions (i.e. cell-level noise) that can potentially lead to morphological noise (i.e. stochastic differences between morphologies that are expected to be equal, e.g. the right and left sides of bilateral organisms). In this study, we explore new and existing hypotheses on buffering mechanisms against cell-level noise. Many of these hypotheses focus on how the boundaries between territories of gene expression remain regular and well defined, despite cell-level noise and division. We study these hypotheses and how irregular territory boundaries lead to morphological noise. To determine the consistency of the different hypotheses, we use a general computational model of development: EmbryoMaker. EmbryoMaker can implement arbitrary gene networks regulating basic cell behaviors (contraction, adhesion, etc.), signaling and tissue biomechanics. We found that buffering mechanisms based on the orientation of cell divisions cannot lead to regular boundaries but that other buffering mechanisms can (homotypic adhesion, planar contraction, non-dividing boundaries, constant signaling and majority rule hypotheses). We also explore the effects of the shape and size of the territories on morphological noise.

TOWARDS STANDARDIZED REGULATIONS FOR BLOCK CHAIN SMART CONTRACTS: INSIGHTS FROM DELPHI AND SWARA ANALYSIS

The rise of digital currency and the public ledger Block Chain has led to the development of a new type of electronic contract known as "smart contracts." For these contracts to be considered valid, they must adhere to traditional contract rules and be concluded without any impediments. Once written, encrypted, and signed, smart contracts are recorded in the Block Chain Ledger, providing transparent and secure record-keeping. Smart contracts offer several benefits, including their ability to execute automatically without requiring human intervention, their provision of public visibility of contract provisions on the Block Chain, their avoidance of financial crimes like Money Laundering, and their prevention of contract abuses. However, disputes arising from smart contracts still require human intervention, presenting unique challenges in enforcing these contracts, such as evidentiary issues, enforceability of waivers of defenses, and jurisdictional and choice-of-law considerations. Due to the novel nature of smart contracts, there are currently no standardized regulations that apply to them. Countries that have approved them have turned to customary law to legitimize their use. The Delphi method was used to identify critical success factors for applying blockchain transactions in a manufacturing company. Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) was then utilized to determine the most influential factors. The proposed methodology was implemented, and results show that the most influential factors for the successful application of blockchain transactions as smart contracts in a manufacturing company are: turnover, the counter argument, vision, components for building, and system outcome quality. Conversely, connections with government entities and subcontractors, and the guarantee of quality have the least influence on successful implementation. These findings can contribute to the development of a legal framework for smart contracts in a manufacturing company.

TOWARDS STANDARDIZED REGULATIONS FOR BLOCK CHAIN SMART CONTRACTS: INSIGHTS FROM DELPHI AND SWARA ANALYSIS

The rise of digital currency and the public ledger Block Chain has led to the development of a new type of electronic contract known as "smart contracts." For these contracts to be considered valid, they must adhere to traditional contract rules and be concluded without any impediments. Once written, encrypted, and signed, smart contracts are recorded in the Block Chain Ledger, providing transparent and secure record-keeping. Smart contracts offer several benefits, including their ability to execute automatically without requiring human intervention, their provision of public visibility of contract provisions on the Block Chain, their avoidance of financial crimes like Money Laundering, and their prevention of contract abuses. However, disputes arising from smart contracts still require human intervention, presenting unique challenges in enforcing these contracts, such as evidentiary issues, enforceability of waivers of defenses, and jurisdictional and choice-of-law considerations. Due to the novel nature of smart contracts, there are currently no standardized regulations that apply to them. Countries that have approved them have turned to customary law to legitimize their use. The Delphi method was used to identify critical success factors for applying blockchain transactions in a manufacturing company. Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) was then utilized to determine the most influential factors. The proposed methodology was implemented, and results show that the most influential factors for the successful application of blockchain transactions as smart contracts in a manufacturing company are: turnover, the counter argument, vision, components for building, and system outcome quality. Conversely, connections with government entities and subcontractors, and the guarantee of quality have the least influence on successful implementation. These findings can contribute to the development of a legal framework for smart contracts in a manufacturing company.

TOWARDS STANDARDIZED REGULATIONS FOR BLOCK CHAIN SMART CONTRACTS: INSIGHTS FROM DELPHI AND SWARA ANALYSIS

The rise of digital currency and the public ledger Block Chain has led to the development of a new type of electronic contract known as "smart contracts." For these contracts to be considered valid, they must adhere to traditional contract rules and be concluded without any impediments. Once written, encrypted, and signed, smart contracts are recorded in the Block Chain Ledger, providing transparent and secure record-keeping. Smart contracts offer several benefits, including their ability to execute automatically without requiring human intervention, their provision of public visibility of contract provisions on the Block Chain, their avoidance of financial crimes like Money Laundering, and their prevention of contract abuses. However, disputes arising from smart contracts still require human intervention, presenting unique challenges in enforcing these contracts, such as evidentiary issues, enforceability of waivers of defenses, and jurisdictional and choice-of-law considerations. Due to the novel nature of smart contracts, there are currently no standardized regulations that apply to them. Countries that have approved them have turned to customary law to legitimize their use. The Delphi method was used to identify critical success factors for applying blockchain transactions in a manufacturing company. Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) was then utilized to determine the most influential factors. The proposed methodology was implemented, and results show that the most influential factors for the successful application of blockchain transactions as smart contracts in a manufacturing company are: turnover, the counter argument, vision, components for building, and system outcome quality. Conversely, connections with government entities and subcontractors, and the guarantee of quality have the least influence on successful implementation. These findings can contribute to the development of a legal framework for smart contracts in a manufacturing company.

A series of new rare-earth sulfide borates RE3S3BO3 (RE = Nd, Tb, Dy): Syntheses, structures and optical properties

Exploration of new compounds belonging to unusual families is always attractive for the everlasting development of material science. Here, three isomorphic rare-earth sulfide borates RE3S3BO3 (RE = Nd, Tb, Dy) have been obtained via a facile metal oxide-boron-sulfur solid-state routine. Their centrosymmetric triclinic structures feature 3D framework built by three types of REOxSy units, viz. REOS6, REO4S3, and REO3S6. Their structural relationship with similar phases and lanthanide contraction rule are discussed. Their optical band gaps are measured to be 2.59–2.70 eV, and the corresponding theoretical calculations are also performed. This work enriches the rarely studied chalcogenide borate system and is conducive to discovering more inorganic materials.

النظام القانوني للمحكمة الاوروبية لحقوق الانسان

The European court of human rights is considered a regional supervisory judicial tool, that plays a special role in a good application of the rules of the European contract for human rights and its protocols and make the member states respects the texts of this contract and its protocols convention. On the level of international protection services, the European court of human rights is considered the most effectiveness on the universal level and is considered precedent in the history of control to the commitment of countries for human rights and common freedom for people on their territories.