“契约自由”是西方传统民商法的基本法律原则之一。根据该原则,合同关系应由“私法”规范来调整。在涉外经济合同领域,亦是如此。晚近,尤其是第二次世界大战以来,随着西方国家对经济活动干预的加强,大量的涉外经济合同管制立法应运而生。这些管制立法主要包括两类:一类是一些具有明显“公法”性质的专门立法,如外汇管理法、进出口管制 “Freedom of contract” is one of the basic legal principles of the traditional western civil and commercial law. According to this principle, the contractual relationship should be adjusted by the “private law” norms. The same is true in the field of foreign economic contracts. Recently, especially since World War II, a large number of foreign-related economic contract control legislation came into being with the intervention of western countries on economic activities. These control legislation mainly includes two types: one is some of the obvious “public law” of the special nature of the legislation, such as the Foreign Exchange Control Act, Import and Export Control