Force Majeure and Frustration in Contract Law

The subject of the thesis is Force majeure and Frustration in Contract Law. Force majeure and frustration are two legal institutes that enable a party to escape from performing a contract. These institutes allow to make exceptions from the corner-stone principle of contract law - pacta sunt servanda. The force majeure institute is supplemented by the doctrine of rebus sic stantibus (i.e. the contract must be performed at the circumstances at which it was concluded) in the countries which accept the force majeure institute. By using historical, comparative and analysis, etc., methods, the thesis aims to discuss the genesis of various institutes releasing from performing the contract, including force majeure and frustration, and reveal the most significant features of the said institutes, provide detailed comparison of their legal conditions and consequences of application. In view that the force majeure institute is closely related with the rebus sic stantibus doctrine in the Republic of Lithuania, the thesis also deals with the said doctrine and highlights its most significant features in comparison with the force majeure and frustration. When analyzing frustration of the contract, attention is paid to legal regulation applied in England, the country from where the doctrine stems out; however, comparisons are also made with the legal regulation of other countries, including France, Russia, Holland. Besides, the thesis evaluates the unification problem of the above-mentioned institutes applied in different jurisdictions and examines the provisions of the following documents: Principles of International Commercial Contracts, prepared by The International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT), published in 1994 and 2004, Principles of European Contract Law, prepared by the Commission on the European Contract Law and published in 1998, and the United Nations Vienna Convention on International Sales of Goods (1980)