AL-Qadisiya Journal For Law and Political Sciences

Developments in the Defect of Coercion in Civil Law (A Comparative Study)

https://doi.org/10.63677/jqlap.2025.164284.1406
Volume 17, Issue: 2 part 1
Summer 2026
Pages 779-810
AL-Qadisiya Journal For Law and Political Sciences

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Bakhtawar Aziz Hamad Amin
Hawazin Abdul Mohsen Abdullah

Salahaddin University – College of Law – Department of Private Law

Abstract
Contemporary economic and social developments, alongside evolving legal doctrines, have increasingly required limitations on the principle of freedom of contract. Legislative and judicial interventions now play a vital role in preserving the financial balance of agreements, particularly where unfair contractual terms arise from the exploitation of a party’s informational disadvantage and economic dependency. Such exploitation undermines genuine consent, impairing free will, and may compel the weaker party to conclude agreements or accept terms they would otherwise reject.
Conventional defects of consent have proven inadequate in safeguarding the reciprocal economic positions of contracting parties. In response, courts have recognized the need to address the shortcomings of traditional contract theory in maintaining performance and financial equilibrium. This has led to the judicial development of remedies for situations in which one party exploits the other’s economic dependency—a practice widely referred to as economic duress. Recent legislative reforms have sought to codify protections against such exploitation by recognizing economic duress as an independent defect of consent.

Keywords

Economic duress
dependency
contractual balance
exploitation
Subjects
  • Receive Date 21 August 2025
  • Accept Date 26 August 2025

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