ABSTRACT
Almost all legal systems recognise the freedom for the parties to choose the applicable law for their contracts. If chosen by the parties, Islamic finance principles can be applied to financial contracts. Article 16 of Italian Law 218/95 provides in fact that “foreign law is not applied if its effects are contrary to public order”. Public order aims at ensuring the respect, in any given situation, of the fundamental principles of the internal order in a given historical period, grounded upon the necessary protection of fundamental human rights shared by different legal systems and which may be inferred from the protection granted by a legislation which takes precedence. Comparison between Shari‘ah and Italian law with reference to agreements of a financial nature, highlights a series of significant differences.
