what is force majeure 
force majeure is a clause included in contracts to remove liability for unforeseeable and unavoidable catastrophes interrupting the expected timeline and preventing participants from fulfilling obligations these clauses generally cover natural disasters like hurricanes tornadoes and earthquakes and human actions such as armed conflict and human made diseases nez riaz investopediaelements of the clauseinvoking force majeurefor events to constitute the use of force majeure they must be unforeseeable external to contract parties and unavoidable force majeure means greater force and is related to an act of god an event for which no party can be held accountable these concepts are defined and applied differently depending on the jurisdiction suppose an avalanche destroys a supplier s factory in the french alps causing long shipment delays and leading the client to sue for damages the supplier might employ a force majeure defense arguing that the avalanche was an unforeseeable external and unavoidable event the three tests applied by french law 1 unless the contract specifically named an avalanche as removing the supplier s liability the court may decide that the supplier owes damages the concept of force majeure originated in french civil law and is an accepted standard in many jurisdictions that derive their legal systems from the napoleonic code in common law systems such as those of the united states and the united kingdom force majeure clauses are acceptable but must be more explicit about the events that would trigger the clause 2force majeure vs pacta sunt servandaforce majeure conflicts with the concept of pacta sunt servanda latin for agreements must be kept a key concept in civil and international law with analogs in common law 3 it is not supposed to be easy to escape contractual liability and proving that events were unforeseeable for example is difficult human threats like cyber nuclear and biological warfare capabilities or natural disasters have raised questions about what is and is not foreseeable in a legal sense if a natural or other disaster repeats or reoccurs it may not be considered unforeseeable 