Sharia as Law in International Commerce: Challenges in Attracting International Investors to Saudi Arabia and Achieving a Major Goal of Vision 2030

Abstract

When negotiating international commercial contracts, a crucial aspect is the choice of governing law used to interpret the contract and the rights and obligations of the parties in case of disputes. In this paper, the relevance of Islamic Sharia as law is under consideration, given that some early international arbitral tribunals have set aside Sharia as inadequate or not sophisticated enough to govern complex commercial disputes, resorting instead to general principles of international law. Given that the goals of Saudi Vision 2030 are to attract high-quality international investment and to create a welcoming legal environment, this paper examines the nature of Islamic Sharia as the primary source of law for the kingdom, on the one hand, to offer a clear overview of the primary and secondary sources of sharia to prospective international investors who are not familiar with the laws and rules of Muslim countries that rely on sharia, or when sharia is the applicable law in the contract, and, on the other hand, to describe the attempts made to improve the legal environment in Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: Islamic sharia, Islamic law, Quran, Sunnah, Ijtihad.