Change Of Circumstances

Research on the theory of changed circumstances in foreign countries has been mature and won increasingly support of legislation in many countries, making it an important legal principle of contract law. On May13,2009, the judicial interpretation of the law of contract (b) of Article26promulgated by the Supreme People’s Court is considered to be the recognization of the changed circumstances in China’s judicial system. Legislation, however, does not provide a series of specific provisions on the changed circumstances, making it hard for the application of changed circumstances in judicial practice.This paper tries to do the overall research about the principle of changed circumstances to enhance its operability in judicial practice, thus to enable them to better serve the community and meet people’s needs.Outside the introduction, conclusion, this paper is divided into four parts. The first part of the paper makes a scientific definition of changed circumstances and analyses its three theoretical basis, which are the "frustration of contract theory" on the British and American laws, the "non-foresee theory " on French law and the "basis of the legal acts theory" on Germany law, through these, people can have a preliminary understanding of the principle of changed circumstances. The second part brings forward a deeper understanding of the principal of changed circumstances by distinguishing boundaries of similar legal concept, that is the discrimination of changed circumstances and major misunderstanding, unconscionability, especially with force majeure and commercial risk comparison.The third part discusses the theoretical debate on changed circumstances in three respects, and puts out its existing problems from the legislative of the changed circumstances and judicial status quo. The fourth part, based on the first three parts, proposes specific ideas to reconstruct the principle of changed circumstances and try to accurately define the principle of changed circumstances from identified standard, applicable elements and the legal effect of angle.