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introduction
This page looks at legal frameworks.
 Australia
The Australian Electronic
Transactions Act 1999 (ETA)
is perhaps the major achievement of the national government's 'strategic
framework for the information economy' under the coordination of the
National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE),
giving electronic transactions involving Commonwealth government
agencies the same status as those using paper.
Because most
contract law is a state responsibility, the Act is to be 'mirrored' by
complementary state legislation. As yet, similar acts have come
into effect in Victoria and NSW; further progress is likely to be slow.
There's a useful one-volume discussion in The Law of Payment Systems
(Sydney, Butterworths 00) by Alan Tyree & Andrea Beatty.
ETA reflects changes to the
Evidence Act during the past decade - the law now looks more kindly on
newfangled technology such as the photocopier - and the Electronic
Commerce Expert Group's 1998 Electronic Commerce: Building the Legal
Framework report,
that embraced electronic signatures, record-keeping, contracts, the
UNCITRAL model code for ecommerce (see below), and other matters.
The
Attorney-General's Department has an e-Commerce
Homepage, primarily concerned with the ETA.
A paper
of particular interest is that by Alan Tyree on Computer Money -
Legal Considerations.
The slow pace of electronic commerce
reform at the national and state/territory levels has been speeded up by
overseas developments. In the US the Electronic Signatures In
Global & National Commerce Act has just been signed by President
Clinton and will come into effect in October this year.
UNCITRAL
The United Nations
Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)
has proposed a model code for ecommerce, to be reflected in national
legislation and practice across the globe. Information about the
code is available on the UNCITRAL website
For a perspective on the UNCITRAL negotiating process, the players and likely outcomes we recommend the
excellent Global Business Regulation (Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press 00) by John Braithwaite & Peter Drahos.
EU and North America
In Europe the European Commission late
last year published a proposal for a Directive
to "establish a coherent legal framework for electronic commerce
across the EU".
Elsewhere in the guides we've pointed
to the American Bar Association's
excellent site exploring
global jurisdiction issues
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