Parties’ Choice of the “Rules of Law” to Govern International Commercial Contract before National Courts

According to the conflict-of-laws rule in many Arab countries, the international commercial contract is subject to the law chosen by the parties. According to the prevailing opinion in judiciary and doctrine, the law chosen by the parties to govern the contract should be a law of a particular State. If the parties chose "rules of law", such a choice will generally not be recognized as the law governing the contract. Rather, courts would consider such a choice as an incorporation of the rules of law into the contract, provided that such chosen rules of law shall not contradict the mandatory rules of the law applicable to the contract.
At the international level, in 2016, Unidroit published the latest version of its Principles on International Commercial Contracts. These Principles form a good set of rules of law that can be chosen to govern the contract. In 2015, The Hague Principles on Choice of Law in International Commercial Contracts were also published. Article 3 thereof explicitly enables the parties to choose rules of law to govern the contract. This research aims to indicate the possibility that the judiciary, particularly in the Arabic States, recognizes the rules of law chosen by the parties (e.g. the Unidroit Principles on International Commercial Contracts) as the law applicable to the contract.