The International Guiding Hand

The Philippine E-commerce law was based on the Model Law agreed upon by the members of the United Nations Commission on Industrial Trade Law (UNCITRAL). It is then no surprise that included in our law is a provision (Article 37) stating that the law’s interpretation will give due regard to its international origins and bases.

But what does this mean?

Basically, this provision says that the interpretation of our E-commerce law, although a local legislation, is always with reference to the principles agreed upon internationally.

And what are these principles?

The members of the UNCITRAL agreed that the E-commerce law to be enacted in its member countries will be uniform and that it will promote the use of information technologies in trade and commerce and other transactions, as well as validate such transactions. It will also facilitate electronic commerce among and within nations and support commercial practice (note: gist only).

Eh?

How can we apply such principles to a Philippine setting? What are their effects on existing Philippine laws?

Let’s be concrete. For example, in our Civil Code, there is a provision there stating that certain kinds of contracts have to be in writing or else they will not be enforceable (its a valid contract but you cannot invoke the terms in it in court). Now, with the E-commerce law which advocates the use of information technologies in business transactions (as mentioned, a general principle woven in the making of the Model Law), a person armed with only text messages as proof of the contract he entered into (i.e. the offer and acceptance of the contract were all done through text), may use these messages as proof of the ‘in writing’ requirement of the law. Because of the principles behind our E-commerce law, provisions of the Civil Code (which is like a ‘god’ code in a Civil Law country like the Philippines) will have to accommodate said principles. And this ‘accommodation’ in the law does not only apply to our country but also with the other countries who have made their own E-commerce law because one of those international principles agreed upon was the uniformity of the E-commerce law in the member countries. We could now invoke when dealing with other nations that transactions made using information technologies are to be honored and are valid.

See http://www.jus.uio.no/lm/uncitral/doc for the UNCITRAL Model Law and discussions on it.

Created by Inez Togle and Rochelle Tumaneng