A General Theory of Right of Withdrawal in Mutual Obligations

According to Article 337 of the Iranian Civil Code, "Each of theseller and buyer is entitled to restrain from delivering the thing sold orthe price until the other party is ready to deliver it".The right that the parties of contract of sale can avoid deliveringhis/her subject of obligation until receiving his/her own considerationof subject of obligation is called the right of withdrawal.Contrary to what some Iranian civil law commentators believe thatthe above mentioned provision is against the rule and limited to whereexplicitly provided by the law, the dominant view in Imamiya figh andIranian law sees it as being according to the rule and nature ofcontracts of exchange and thus extending to contracts other than thatof sale.On the other hand, in some fighi and legal writings, the right ofwithdrawal is considered to go beyond the framework of exchangecontracts covering all involuntary exchanges.In the present article the authors have tried to draw an even broaderscope for the right of withdrawal through proposing a general theory ofright of withdrawal in mutual obligations based on the reciprocity of thetwo obligations and their equality in a way that it goes beyond therelationship between the two obligations which in turn involves allcases that obligations are mutual.