Subject Areas : Civil Law
Maryam Haji hasani 1 , Akbar Imanpour 2
1 - Master’s Degree in Private Law, Department of Law, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran.
2 - Assistant Professor of Private Law, Department of Law, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran.
Keywords: Smart Contract, Justifiable Excuse, Impossibility, Hardship, Breach of Obligation,
Abstract :
Smart contracts, as a new generation of contracts implemented on the platform of distributed ledger technology_particularly blockchain_have been introduced as a tool for guaranteeing the performance of obligations due to their self-executing feature. This study, adopting a descriptive_analytical method, examines the central question of which instances of justifiable non-performance of obligations can be identified in smart contracts. The findings indicate that, despite the automated execution of smart contracts, they remain exposed to technical, legal, and economic obstacles, therefore, the possibility of non-performance cannot be ruled out, indicating that self-execution does not constitute an absolute guarantee of performance. The study concludes that the general doctrines of "impossibility" and "Impracticability" in Iranian law, grounded in Islamic jurisprudence, possess sufficient capacity to justify non-performance in smart contracts. However, the lack of specific regulations governing such contracts highlights the need for legislators to develop specialized rules in this field .Nevertheless, the absence of specific regulations governing such contracts highlights the need for legislative attention toward the formulation of specialized legal rules in this field.
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