Research On The Conclusion Of The International Electronic Contract

The Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts as the first convention on electronic commerce of the UNCITRAL, standardized many legal issues to the cross-border electronic contracts. This paper analyzes the international electronic contracts' form requirements, the time and location of establishment and electronic error. First, this paper analyzes the relevant provisions of the Convention. Second, this paper contrasts the meaning of the relevant provisions among this Convention, some international treaties such as United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce and UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Signatures, as well as other countries' corresponding e-commerce legislations, including China. This paper pointes out the perfections and shortcomings of this Convention.About the concept of international electronic contracts, the author thinks that it is a wide-meaning electronic contract made by parties whose places of business located in different countries from each other.The form requirements of the international electronic contracts comprise written form, electronic signature, and so forth. On the written form requirements, the Convention adopted the functional equivalence approach. On Electronic Signature, the Convention adopted Technology Neutral principle.On the established time and place of the international electronic contracts, the Convention regulated the time of dispatch is the time that electronic information leaves the information system which is within the controlled scope of the sender. It is an important symbol that the Convention is on the front line of the world as the Convention defined "dispatch" as "left" instead of "enter". On "the time of receipt", the Convention adopted the "Check Principle" which is called by the author while the current legislations in most countries still adopted the "Arrival Principle".On "Electronic Error", the Convention regulated the recognition and resolution on the transmission error occurred between the natural person and automated message system. Finally, this paper analyzes the practical significance of this Convention, and also put forward some suggestions on how to promote the development of our country's international electronic business transactions.