Smart Contracts: Code, Normativity and Legal Change in Saudi Arabia

Jonathan G. Ercanbrack ()
Additional contact information
Jonathan G. Ercanbrack: University of London, Reader in Transnational Financial Law, SOAS College of Law

Chapter 8 in Digital Finance and Transformation in the Gulf, 2026, pp 207-231 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Smart contracts use code as the vehicle of contracts, which avoids the abstraction and vagueness of human language contracts. This shift from language to code reorients the nature and meaning of legal principles and rules since smart contract code is deterministic and automatic whereas language is abstract and vague. The execution of code becomes the interpretive focal point by which legal principles will need to be assessed, reoriented and modified to facilitate this mode of code-based contracting. The magnitude of these changes may be particularly significant in relational contract cultures such as Saudi Arabia whose traditional contracting rules and principles offer a markedly different theory of contract than the classical theory of contract in western legal traditions. Using a comparative law methodology, this study assesses how Saudi contract law might deal with smart contracts, focusing on bedrock principles such as consent and mandatory terms like good faith, capacity and certainty.

Keywords: Smart contracts; Saudi civil code; Comparative contract law; Legal change; Blockchain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-92-1588-1_8

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789819215881

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-92-1588-1_8

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().