Legal texts on electronic transactions and signatures

The promotion of wider participation in UNCITRAL treaties and model laws is a core component of the mandate of UNCITRAL.

Technical activities offered by UNCITRAL may support both legal review and drafting and capacity-building for legal implementation. In detail, they include:

• organising briefing missions and seminars and participating in conferences to familiarize participants with UNCITRAL texts and their use;
• undertaking law reform assessments to assist governments, legislative bodies and other authorities in developing and other countries to review existing legislation and assess their needs for law reform in the commercial field;
• assisting with the drafting of national legislation to implement UNCITRAL texts;
• assisting international development agencies to use UNCITRAL texts in their law reform activities and projects;
• providing advice and assistance to international and other organizations, bar associations, organizations of attorneys, chambers of commerce and arbitration centres, on the use of UNCITRAL texts; and
• organizing group training activities to facilitate the implementation and interpretation of modern commercial legislation based on UNCITRAL texts by judiciaries and legal practitioners.

• Two online lectures on “Legal Aspects of Electronic Commerce in International Trade” are available in the Audiovisual Library of International Law.
• UNCITRAL is a partner of the UNCTAD TrainForTrade e-learning course on Digital Identity for Trade and Development

UNCITRAL texts in the field of electronic commerce have been particularly successful and provided the basis for national legislation in over 100 States.

• The most widely enacted legislative text is the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce (MLEC, 1996), which establishes rules for the equal treatment of electronic and paper-based information, as well as the legal recognition of electronic transactions and processes, based on the fundamental principles of non-discrimination against the use of electronic means, functional equivalence and technology neutrality.
• The UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Signatures (MLES, 2001) provides additional rules on the use of electronic signatures and on rights and obligations of the concerned parties (signatory; service provider; relying party).
• The United Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts (ECC, 2005) builds on the MLEC, which updates and complements, to offer the first treaty that provides legal certainty for electronic contracting in international trade. In several jurisdictions the ECC has been incorporated in national law but has not yet been formally adopted as a treaty. More information on the ECC is available at
• Most recently, the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR, 2017) applies the same principles to enable and facilitate the use in electronic form of transferable documents and instruments, such as bills of lading, bills of exchange, cheques, promissory notes and warehouse receipts.
• Besides legislative texts, the UNCITRAL secretariat has prepared guidance documents on certain aspects of electronic transactions law. They are the Notes on the main issues of cloud computing contracts (2019), and the publication Promoting confidence in electronic commerce: legal issues on international use of electronic authentication and signature methods (2007).

Adoption of UNCITRAL texts on electronic commerce

UNCITRAL texts on electronic commerce have been adopted in more than 100 States. The detailed status of the adoption of each text is available on the UNCITRAL website.

Significant work in cooperation with other organizations has also been conducted in the field of legal aspects of single windows and paperless trade facilitation. One major outcome of that joint work was the adoption of the Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific, a UN/ESCAP treaty.