How Can Smart Contracts Handle Force Majeure or “Act of God” Clauses Found in Traditional Contracts?

Directly implementing a subjective clause like force majeure is extremely difficult for a smart contract, as it cannot interpret unforeseen, real-world events. However, a contract can be designed to react to the outcomes of such events via an oracle.

For example, an oracle could report on a catastrophic weather event or a government-declared state of emergency. A multi-signature agreement or a DAO vote could then be required to trigger a pre-programmed "pause" or "termination" function in the contract, providing a mechanism to handle the event based on a consensus of the parties involved.