umber of Model Law initiatives, in the field of international contracting, which are designed to foster closer agreement between the member States of the United Nations, in their approach to international electronic contracting. To date, UNCITRAL has promulgated two Model Laws in the field, the 1996 Model Law on Electronic Commerce and the 2001 Model Law on E-signatures.
Further to this work, in June 2005, UNCITRAL adopted a draft Convention on the Use of Electronic Communication in International Contracting. The European Commission of the European Union has also requested the Council that is be given the mandate to negotiate the Draft Convention within the UNCITRAL negotiations.
EU Initiatives
In June 2000 the European and the Council issued Directive 2000/31/EC on certain legal aspects of information society services, called the electronic commerce directive. The directive had to be implemented by all member states before 17 January 2002. The directive obliged Member States to remove any prohibitions or restrictions on the use of electronic contracts. In addition, the Directive ensures legal security by imposing certain information requirements for the conclusion of electronic contracts in particular in order to help consumers to avoid technical errors.
Directive 2000/31/EC
This directive covers a range of issues concerning liability issues and what are called Information Society services. The directive begins with 英语论文网 【http://www.51lunwen.org】a series of recitals, of which the most relevant for electronic contracting are:
Recital 34
‘Each Member State is to amend its legislation containing requirements, and in particular requirements as to form, which are likely to curb the use of contracts by electronic means; the examination of the legislation requiring such adjustment should be systematic and should cover all the necessary stages and acts of the contractual process; including the filing of the contract; the result of this amendment should be to make contracts concluded electronically workable...’
There are exceptions which will allow restrictions to the use of electronic contracts which are permissible in terms of Recital 35 and, importantly, Recitals 55 and 56 maintain that consumer contracts will continue to be in a special position of protection.
There then follows relevant Articles which form Section 3: Contracts concluded by electronic means:
Article 9: Treatment of contracts
1. Member States shall ensure that their legal system allows contracts to be concluded by electronic means. Member States shall in particular ensure that the legal requirements applicable to the contractual process neither create obstacles for the use of electronic contracts nor result in such contracts being deprived of legal effectiveness and validity on account of their having been made by electronic means.
2. Member States may lay down that paragraph 1 shall not apply to all or ce
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