The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) adopted a convention on the use of electronic communications in international contracting. Its aim is to enhance the electronic communications' legal certainty in international contracting and to remove related obstacles.
Following the introduction of new technological instruments such as e-mail, electronic data interchange and the Internet, the adoption of this convention was needed to provide a common frame under existing international trade law systems.
In particular, the provisions of the convention are concerned, inter alia, with the parties' location in an electronic environment, the exact time and place of transmission of electronic communications, the use of automated message systems for contract formation or the establishment of certain criteria in order to establish functional and juridical correspondence between electronic communications and paper documents as well as between electronic authentication methods and hand-written signatures.
The new Convention should enter into force six months after the deposit of the third instrument of ratification.
Source: Press release: www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/ga10424.doc.htm