Contratos internacionais no contexto de pandemia da covid-19: conflito de leis no espaço e a cláusula hardship como um instrumento de conservação do acordo

Abstract

This article sought as a general objective to analyze the hardship clause as a possible solution to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on international contracts. For that, we tried to examine these contracts in a general way, considering the impossibility of covering all the contractual formats and sectorial specificities in such a narrow space of reflection. As specific objectives, therefore, it was intended, a theoretical and conceptual delimitation about the relevance of international contracts and the consequent impacts of the pandemic on them, to evaluate the perspective of Brazilian jurisdiction and any gaps left by the Law of Introduction to the Rules of Brazilian Law (LINDB), and finally, to analyze whether the hardship clause would be a means of preserving international contracts in the proposed context. Methodologically, literature review and document analysis were used. The analyzed studies revealed that, although the hardship clause is not the main solution against the circumstances of the investigated context, it is an opportune tool for what it proposes, also inferring that the relevance of well-designed force majeure clauses displaces the idea that the pandemic itself impacts or unbalances all contracts to the same extent and, precisely because of this, would justify the immediate non-compliance with obligations, review or even their termination.