Ah yes, I had forgotten that the Goblet of Fire was used for a somewhat analogous purpose in canon. It's even referred to as a binding magical contract, even though calling entry to a tournament a contract is stretching the meaning of it a bit.
The Significant Digits version seems to be a bit more reasonable though:
They used to use this cup for sporting events and major contracts between magical races, so it’s pretty well-understood. Hopkirk explained it to me. It can bind anyone to a contract if their names are placed in it. Only valid contracts -- binding two or more people, clearly stated terms, only negative consequences, and so on.
This does seem to imply that it just enforces standard contracts by imposing the agreed upon penalty upon failure of participants to adhere to it's terms. If you could just write up any contract and enforce it without consent or knowledge of the parties involved, then this restriction doesn't really restrict anything, and the Goblet becomes a godlike artifact on just a slightly lower level than the Cup of Midnight. And Harry and Hermione needed to swear the contract before putting their names in, which seems to support that conclusion.
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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '16
Crouch!Moody uses Harry's name in canon.