The Application of Human Rights Principles and Their Impact on Contract Formation

Abstract

This study examines the impact of human rights standards on contractual relationships in light of contemporary developments, particularly digital contracts, platform agreements, and modern contracts of adhesion, which often involve economic, informational, or technological inequality between the parties. The research problem concerns the adequacy of traditional general rules of civil law in responding to the expanding protective influence of new generations of human rights within private contractual relations without undermining the binding force of contracts and transactional stability. The study adopts an analytical method by examining Iraqi civil-law provisions in conjunction with relevant constitutional rules, international instruments, judicial applications, and legal doctrine.

The study concludes that contractual freedom is a substantive right to decide whether to contract and to determine contractual terms, whereas contract formation is the actual legal exercise of that right. Human rights protection does not weaken the principle that agreements must be kept; rather, it restores that principle to a foundation of genuine and non-exploited consent. Public order primarily safeguards the fundamental interests of society, while human rights add person-centred standards, including dignity, equality, protective justice, and data protection. The study recommends express regulation of digital and adhesion contracts, stronger judicial scrutiny of unfair terms, and clearer evidentiary mechanisms for contractual human-rights violations.