The Issues and Characteristics of the Preliminary Draft Convention on International Contracts Concluded or Evidenced by Data Message

전자계약에 관한 국제협약 예비초안의 논점과 특징에 관한 고찰

Legal rules applying to the commerce and international commerce in particular contracts, proper law, jurisdiction and so on, have improved with time and experience. Engaging in e-commerce on the World Wide Web may expose the company to the risk of being sued in any foreign country where Internet user can establish a legal claim. The modem law of contracts is highly sophisticated and difficult to understand. With contracts created in cyberspace, the basic rules are no difference that we can find. However, there are situations in e-commerce that are altogether new and to which the existing rules cannot apply. Here uncertainty and business risk is too high for trading partners to deal with certainty. Therefore existing law must change to e-commerce law so that it provides certainty and enforceability over e-commerce. UNCITRAL Working Group on Electronic Commerce prepared the Preliminary Draft Convention on [International] Contracts Concluded or Evidenced by Data Message from the thirty-ninth session in 2002 which applies to international contracts concluded or evidenced by means of data messages. An electronic contract is concluded when the acceptance of an offer becomes effective, and an offer becomes effective when it is received by the offeree, and an acceptance of an offer becomes effective when the indication of assent is received by the offeror according to this Convention. Electronic contract may be concluded by the interaction of an automated computer system and natural person or by the interaction of automated computer systems, and a contract formed by a natural person that accesses an automated computer system of another person has no legal effect in case the neutral person made a material error in a data message.