In China, e-commerce was initiated in 1998, and Chinese government has made a great effort to promote development of electronic commerce and to improve the legal environment for the development. The Contract Law of PRC of 1999 is treated as the first ...
In China, e-commerce was initiated in 1998, and Chinese government has made a great effort to promote development of electronic commerce and to improve the legal environment for the development. The Contract Law of PRC of 1999 is treated as the first contract law that recognizes a contract in data message form as a contract in writing. In 2004, the Electronic Signature Law of PRC (the ESL) was issued so as to make e-contract enforceable. The legal obstacle, however, still exists up to now. For overcoming the legal obstacle of e-commerce, The United Nations (through UNCITRAL), with the Model Law, leads the way and make right solution to e-commerce. But the Model Law is an evidence-related law in its essential although with a superficial commerce law name. Such, in this paper, the author argues that it is not correct for a country to act commerce law to copy the model of the Model Law, or it is not sufficient to enact separate e-commerce law or e-signature law, and what we need is to integrate e-commerce law into the current legal system.