The immense development of international trade was born the so-called "electronic commerce". We will address the question of whether the new technology can eliminate the paper bill of lading, to finish the creation of an "electronic bill of lading.
The bill of lading provides three main functions: proof of contract of carriage, proof of receipt of the goods on board and the representative title of goods.
The dematerialization of lading may result in a variety of legal barriers because, how evidence of the contract, ensuring the representative character and tradable goods, and allow a smooth functioning of international sales contracts? Indeed, can we replace the signature and printed by computer technology as the key computer, or computer record, etc... ?
In fact, a test of legislation admits to note that separate criteria have been established in each jurisdiction, allowing the right of acceptance in an electronic document. However, differences of instruments may be problematic in the international contract, inasmuch as, for example, the various national laws do not have the same legal definition of the concept of writing or original.
Solutions are sought: The Commission in 1996 adopted a Model Law on Electronic Commerce, which provides for a secure exchange of data, by introducing key information secret reserved for the exclusive use of the operators involved, thus, d establish the sequence of operations and content of documents. The European Union, for its part, has put forward the "Bolero", which aims to create a secure record held by a neutral authority to record information computer.
The current thinking on electronic commerce has been the main trigger, the considerable development of commercial transactions over the Internet, which has become a remarkable tool dealer. "It was argued in particular by A. BENSOUSSAN that there is no legal vacuum around the Internet, because its logic became transaction falls within the scope of many laws and regulations, supplemented by a current legal and judicial growing.
The question here is to what extent migration of EDI to the Internet are the best possible conditions for taking into account specificity of lading?
