Trade Usages Under United Nations Convention On The Use Of Electronic Communications In International Contracts

United Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts (hereinafter referred to as "ECC") was adopted in the United Nations General Assembly on November23,2005, and it formally went into effect on March1,2013. As the first international convention about electronic commerce in the world, ECC unified the rules of using electronic communications in the international contracts and enhanced legal certainty and commercial predictability of the international e-commerce. Its formulation and effectiveness has extremely important significance on the development of international trade, especially international e-commerce. However, ECC is imperfect because it has few rules about substantive issues involved in the contracts concluded by means of electronic communications.The minimal nature of ECC’s provisions gives little guidance to entrepreneurs looking for assistance in conducting their business activities online. Trade usages have always been playing a very important role in the field of international trade. Not only could they explain legal provisions, but also they could fill in gaps left by international trade legislation. This paper will discuss emerging trade usages that are being developed by the international community of merchants in the absence of binding international regulations. The objective of the paper is to analyze the provisions of ECC from the perspective of these emerging trade usages and demonstrate how these trade usages could fill in gaps or qualify the provisions of ECC.Besides the preface and conclusion, the paper is divided into three parts:The first part introduces the formulating background and the generating process of ECC, distinguishes the meanings among "usage","custom" and "practice", and then defines the conception of trade usages.The second part analyzes the interrelation between trade usages and ECC, the former half content points out the references to trade usages in the ECC and in the accompanying Explanatory Note by the Secretariat, and analyzes the supplementary function of trade usages. The latter half content analyzes other trade usages which fill in gaps of ECC, and explains what role do trade usages play in ECC.The third part discusses the application of subjective usages and objective usages under ECC on the basis of comparatively analyzing the application of subjective usages and objective usages under United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (hereinafter refer to as "CISG").