Future legislative trends

The implementation of electronic commercial transactions makes the formation of cross-border business or consumer contracts relatively easier and faster without the need for the parties to travel. However, it challenges the scope and sufficiency of the traditional laws. New concepts resulting from the reform of technology cannot always be found in the existing laws. Thus, there is a need to seek interpretations or explanations of traditional rules in judicial instruments. Consistency of interpretation or explanation is difficult to achieve due to the difference of conflict-of-law rules and legal culture in different countries. Private international law, therefore, is one of the fundamental fields that affects the basic order, certainty and fair play of court litigation and dispute resolution. It is sensible that the legislative strategy for the future reform of private international law should be tailored to the needs of the information society. In the author's view the trends of legislative tasks, approaches and enhancements in the future shall be as follows.

First, the future trend of the legislative tasks on private international law by international organisations, regional and national legislative councils shall be twofold: (1) continuing working on the modernisation and harmonisation of the existing legislation; and (2) carrying on drafting new subject-specific laws only when necessary.

As discussed in previous chapters, there is strong evidence showing that electronic commercial transactions do have their unique characteristics.