2005 - United Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts

Adopted by the General Assembly on 23 November 2005, the Convention aims to enhance legal certainty and commercial predictability where electronic communications are used in relation to international contracts. It addresses the determination of a party's location in an electronic environment; the time and place of dispatch and receipt of electronic communications; the use of automated message systems for contract formation; and the criteria to be used for establishing functional equivalence between electronic communications and paper documents -- including "original" paper documents -- as well as between electronic authentication methods and hand-written signatures.