Future International Work on E-Commerce

What are the pressing topics on which international law should be developed regarding electronic commerce? Are your clients running into difficulties, or areas of uncertainty, that could be resolved by a harmonized approach among our trading partners?

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) is asking these questions. UNCITRAL has been the source of much innovation in e-com law over the years, notably with its Model Law on Electronic Commerce (1996) [PDF] that is the basis of Canadian, American and much other law on that topic.

UNCITRAL is holding a colloquium in New York next month (Feb 14 – 16) to discuss several topics that have been proposed over the years as ripe for further collaborative development. The details can be found online. Note that the meeting is open to anyone who wants to attend, though one must register with UNCITRAL.

The four topics for particular examination are these:

• Identity management – the meeting will hear about an ABA initiative on ‘federated identity management’, an attempt to set legal standards for authentication practices and policies that can be shared among different authenticators. It’s not necessarily a public key infrastructure, but a PKI would be an example of federated ID management.
• Mobile commerce – what can’t you do on a mobile phone (‘device’) these days? In some countries you can do your banking, in most you can buy things … and people can track where you are. Lots of good legal issues.
• Transferable records – the problem has long been stated, but not yet resolved: how does one replicate electronically a document of title or negotiable instrument, where the document itself has value, when electronic documents are so readily copied. One can prevent copying by immobilizing the document – locking it down with encryption etc – but then it loses transferability. Similar functions are performed by registers of entitlement, but is there a solution on the document (or system) level?
• ‘Single window’ systems – single windows are consolidated communications portals for import/export purposes, to put through a single communications channel the information and clearances required from a multitude of authorities. The World Customs Organization is interested, and the United Nations technology body (UN/CEFACT), and in particular some Asian cooperation bodies (ASEAN, APEC). UNCITRAL has looked at the topic. A deeper look at the shared legal challenges will be part of the colloquium.

Which of these do you or your clients run into most often? Which do you think is most ready for law reform? What have they left out that should be on the agenda? Cloud computing?

If you have ideas, or would like some, you could participate in the colloquium. New York sounds like a nice place to spend Valentine’s…