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根据我国民事诉讼法的规定，只有因合同发生的纠纷，可以由双方当事人通过订立合同争议条款自由约定由哪个法院来管辖，这在法律上称协议管辖。合同当事人可以通过约定一个对自己有利的法院(往往规定在本地法院)来管辖案件，以节省费用，避免地方保护主义因素产生的不利影响。应注意的是，合同当事人的这种自由选择权是有条件限制的，这些限制主要表现在以下几个方面：

一、协议管辖不得违反级别管辖与专属管辖。如：按照规定，在广州市一般财产案件诉讼标的超过人民币600万元的，应由广州市中级人民法院管辖。对于标的低于600万元的合同，当事人在合同中约定有关本合同的一切纠纷，应由广州市中级人民法管辖是无效的。又如，海事案件，只能由海事法院管辖，合同当事人约定由普通法院管辖是无效的。

二、被选择的法院必须与合同有关联，即只能在被告住所地、合同履行地、合同签订地、原告住所地、标的物所在地的法院中进行选择，而当事人在制订合同争议条款时应做到表述明确，选择的管辖法院是确定、单一的，不能含糊不清，更不能协议选择两个以上管辖法院。如类似因本合约发生的任何诉讼，双方均可向原告所在地人民法院提起诉讼。的约定，虽在一般情况下不会被认定为无效，但若发生合同双方当事人同时提起诉讼的情况，则很容易引起管辖争议，造成诉讼程序的延长，诉讼成本的增加，给当事人带来很多不必要的麻烦。

三、合同当事人只能就第一审案件决定管辖法院，而不能以协议决定第二审法院。

四、双方必须以书面方式约定管辖法院，口头约定无效。

可以看出，虽然法律赋予了合同当事人自由选择解决合同争议方式的权利，但如何运用好这项权利，订立适当的合同争议条款，应该引起高度的重视。

According to the provisions of China's Civil Procedure Law, only disputes arising from contracts can be freely agreed upon by both parties through the conclusion of contract dispute clauses, which is legally referred to as contractual jurisdiction. The parties to a contract can save costs and avoid the adverse effects of local protectionism by agreeing on a court that is advantageous to them (often designated as a local court) to govern the case. It should be noted that the freedom of choice of the contracting parties is subject to conditional limitations, which mainly manifest in the following aspects:

1、 The jurisdiction of the agreement shall not violate the hierarchical jurisdiction and exclusive jurisdiction. For example, according to regulations, if the subject matter of a general property case in Guangzhou exceeds RMB 6 million, it should be under the jurisdiction of the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court. For contracts with a subject matter less than 6 million yuan, it is invalid for the parties to agree in the contract that all disputes related to this contract should be governed by the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Law. For example, maritime cases can only be under the jurisdiction of maritime courts, and it is invalid for the parties to the contract to agree that they should be under the jurisdiction of ordinary courts.

2、 The chosen court must be related to the contract, that is, it can only be chosen in the court of the defendant's domicile, the place of contract performance, the place of contract signing, the place of plaintiff's domicile, and the place where the subject matter is located. When formulating contract dispute clauses, the parties should express themselves clearly, and the chosen court of jurisdiction should be determined, single, and not ambiguous, let alone agree to choose two or more courts of jurisdiction. In case of any litigation arising from this contract, both parties may file a lawsuit with the people's court where the plaintiff is located. Although the agreement is generally not considered invalid, if both parties to the contract file a lawsuit simultaneously, it can easily cause jurisdictional disputes, prolong the litigation process, increase litigation costs, and bring many unnecessary troubles to the parties.

3、 The parties to the contract can only decide on the jurisdiction of the court in the first instance case, and cannot decide on the second instance court by agreement.

4、 Both parties must agree in writing on the jurisdiction of the court, and oral agreements are invalid.

It can be seen that although the law grants the parties to a contract the right to freely choose the method of resolving contract disputes, how to make good use of this right and establish appropriate contract dispute clauses should be highly valued.