ABSTRACTA Study on the Force Majeure Clause in the International Trade Contracts By Liang, Liang Dept. of International Business The Graduate School of Woosuk University Force majeure institution is a rule to reasonably distribute nature risk and social risk between litigants, not only to protect the interest of no-fault litigant, but also to present a fair justice ideal which civil law is pursuing. however, disputations about whether it is force majeure or not always exist in many countries. In the performance of international trade contract, unpredicted accident causes one party to the contract to postpone the delivery or not deliver the goods, thus the other party suffers the loss more or less. The party encountering the accident, however, will resort to force majeure rules to exempt from corresponding duty. Since force majeure has legal effects to exempt duty or rescind the contract, whether it will be supported results in assignment of the rights and responsibilities. By analyzing the contract dispute caused by the force majeure as exemption rule between Party A and Party B, this paper discusses the finding standard from precondition and the relativity of force majeure, so as to indicate that three preconditions can’t be absolute standards to judge force majeure. Force Majeure Clause as the explicit provision of contract also ware studied. And I applied there doctrines to actual impediments in the course of performance that have often happened in international sale of goods. The relationship between frustration of performance and force majeure is a very close one to each other since the theories of frustration admits the frustration of performance by force majeure or the obsoletion of contract due to the disappearance of contract purpose and the exemption of the responsibility of the party concerned. The concerned parties of contracts began to insert and adopt the form of force majeure to complement the injustice in their risk of responsibilities for the frustration of contract even when its performance is impracticable due to the uncontrollable force majeure after the agreement of contract and effectively encounter the frustration caused by unintentional occurrence. And it may be wise for the parties to introduce a clause in their agreement defining in advance their mutual rights and duties if certain event beyond their control occur whether or not such event result in the frustration of the contract. Such clauses are frequently force majeure clauses. Finally, in construction of force majeure clause, it need to consider carefully. Thus both parties are protected by force majeure clauses.