The Legal Characterization of the Coronavirus Pandemic and its Effects on the Implementation of the Administrative Contracts (A comparative study)

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic is an unprecedented global health crisis. The effects of this pandemic and the precautionary measures to confront it extended to the implementation of contracts in general and administrative contracts in particular. The law constitutes the frst and most capable weapon to encounter these effects by applying the force majeure theory when the implementation of an administrative contract becomes impossible; or by applying the emergency theory when the implementation of the administrative contract becomes burdensome for the contracting party. Therefore, we conducted this study to investigate and clarify the importance of accurate and correct legal characterization of this pandemic and its effects, whether as a force majeure or an emergency, especially since there is a difference in the effects of the application of each of the two theories.