Beyond Impossibility: Force majeure, War, and Natural Events in International Contracts: An Analytical Comparison between Indian Contract Law and Transnational Commercial Norms

The escalating global and domestic conflicts of the twenty-first century ranging Covid-19 pandemic, Russia-Ukraine war to the Red Sea maritime crisis and now the disruption due to Iran – Israel – USA war, have fundamentally disrupted compliance of domestic and international commercial contracts, thrusting into sharp focus a legal doctrine that was long treated as boilerplate, the force majeure clause. This research article undertakes a comprehensive doctrinal and comparative analysis of force majeure provisions as they relate to acts of war and acts of nature (acts of God) under the Indian Contract Act, 1872, benchmarked against major international mercantile law instruments including the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (PICC), and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Model Force majeure Clause (2020). The article critically investigates which contractual terms become unenforceable during wartime conditions, the legal threshold for triggering force majeure, the provisions under the Indian Contract Act that address impossibility and frustration, the circumstances under which compensation must be paid, and the doctrinal distinction between the force majeure clause, the doctrine of frustration, and supervening impossibility. Drawing upon landmark Indian Supreme Court judgments Satyabrata Ghose v. Mugneeram Bangur & Co. (AIR 1954 SC 44) and Energy Watchdog v. CERC (2017) and leading international precedents, this article develops a cross-referential framework to assist contracting parties, legal practitioners, and policymakers in drafting war-resilient contracts.