Covid-19 and roman law: root and Roman configuration of the pacta sunt servanda principle

Abstract

An event of the magnitude of the Covid-19 pandemic also generates consequences at the legal level, as happens at the headquarters of contract compliance. Traditionally, the observance of the agreement (pacta sunt servanda) has been a dogma in the law of obligations and contracts. Even being a rule sculpted in the heat of the moral dyes of the influential medieval canon law, we verify its deep roots in Roman Law, as well as some of its exceptions that will, with the passage of time, in the clause rebus sic stantibus germinate. The encoding will embrace an almost absolute principle, but the pressing reality compels its updating. Both views on the effects of the contract, absolute and relative, inevitably refer us to Roman law..