Contracts are widely used in 

commercial law, and form

the legal foundation for transactions across the world.
Common examples include contracts for the
sale of services and goods (both wholesale and
retail), construction contracts, contracts of
carriage, software licenses, employment
contracts, insurance policies, sale or lease of land, and
various other uses.
The importance of contracts in contemporary
commercial law has given rise to the field of contract
theory, an expansive body of legal theory that
addresses normative and conceptual questions in
contract law. One of the most important questions asked
in contract theory is why contracts are enforced. One
prominent answer to this question focuses on the
economic benefits of enforcing bargains. Another
approach, associated with Charles Fried, maintains that
the purpose of contract law is to enforce promises. This
theory is developed in Fried's book, Contract as
Promise. Other approaches to contract theory are found
in the writings of legal realists and critical legal
studies theorists. More generally, writers have
propounded Marxist and feminist interpretations of
contract. Attempts at overarching understandings of
the purpose and nature of contract as a phenomenon
have been made, notably relational contract
theory originally developed by Ian Roderick Macneil and
Stewart Macaulay, building at least in part on the
contract theory work of Lon L. Fuller. Additionally,
certain academic conceptions of contracts focus on
questions of transaction cost and 'efficient breach'
theory. Another dimension of the theoretical debate in
contract is its place within, and relationship to a
wider law of obligations. Obligations have traditionally
been divided into contracts, which are voluntarily
undertaken and owed to a specific person or persons,
and obligations in tort which are based on the wrongful
infliction of harm to certain protected interests,
primarily imposed by the law, and typically owed to a
wider class of persons. Research in business and
management has also paid attention to the influence of
contracts on relationship development and performance.
[6][7]

Private international law is rooted in the principle that

every jurisdiction has its own distinct contract law
shaped by differences in public policy, judicial tradition,
and the practices of local businesses. Consequently,
while all systems of contract law serve the same
overarching purpose of enabling the creation of legally
enforceable obligations, they may contain significant
differences. Accordingly, many contracts contain
a choice of law clause and a forum selection clause to
determine the jurisdiction whose system of contract law
will govern the contract and the court or other forum in
which disputes will be resolved, respectively. Failing
express agreement on such matters in the contract
itself, countries have rules to determine the law
governing the contract and the jurisdiction for disputes.
For example, European Union Member States apply
Article 4 of the Rome I Regulation to decide the law
governing the contract, and the Brussels I Regulation to
decide jurisdiction.
With the rise of the internet and the corresponding
emergence of e-commerce and electronic securities
trading, electronic contracts have risen to prominence
over the first two decades of the twenty first century.
Many jurisdictions have passed e-signature laws that
have made the electronic contract and signature as
legally valid as a paper contract. In Singapore, the
Electronic Transactions Act (implementing the United
Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic
Communications in International Contracts and
the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable
Records) provides for the validity of electronic records,
signatures, and contracts, while additionally prescribing
specific criteria for electronic transferable records.
[8]
 In order to promote and simplify the use of electronic
contracts and related documents, the act provides for
broad recognition of electronic signatures and expressly
declares that electronic documents satisfy any legal
requirement for a contract or other document to be
"written".[8] Similarly, subpart three of New Zealand’s
Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017 codifies
provisions pertaining to the recognition of electronic
contracts. [9] In India, electronic contracts are governed
by the Indian Contract Act (1872), per which certain
conditions need to be fulfilled while formulating a valid
contact, and the Information Technology Act (2000)
makes further provisions for the validity of online
contracts in particular.[10] In some American states,
email exchanges have been recognised as binding
contracts.[a]
An emerging category of electronic contracts is
the smart contract, which consists of computer
program or a transaction protocol capable of
automatically executing, controlling, or documenting
legally relevant events and actions according to the
terms of a contract or an agreement.[13][14][15][16] The
objectives of smart contracts are the reduction of need
in trusted intermediators, arbitrations and enforcement
costs, fraud losses, as well as the reduction of malicious
and accidental exceptions.[17][14] A number of American
states have passed legislation expressly authorising the
use of smart contracts, such as Arizona,[18] Nevada,
[19]
 Tennessee,[20] Wyoming,[21] and Iowa.