Drawing on international E-commerce regulating trends and modules to form a Jordan-specific one was the main purpose of yet another technical strategy workshop held at the Zara Convention Center on Tuesday, a statement by REACH Initiative said.
Sponsored by Int@j and the information technology sector in Jordan, the workshop is the 5th in a series of 12 technical workshops that come on the heels of REACH 2.0, a review process of the REACH Initiative launched early.
The workshop was devoted to examining the 1996 Model Law on Electronic Commerce developed by United Nations Commission for International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). In his presentation, Simeon Sahaydachny, an AMIR Program consultant and facilitator of the workshop explained that conducting business electronically imposes a completely different situation.
“When an e-commerce transaction takes place, paper documents would no longer function as the tool for attesting to the reliability of the legal particulars of that transaction. This entails the need for devising a new functional law to regulate e-commerce transactions.” This, he went on to say, is what the UNCITTRAL Model Law for Electronic Commerce provides.
Sahaydachny also highlighted some of the e-commerce induced thorny issues that need to be regulated. Such issues included Intellectual Property Rights, third party service provider; in terms of the extent of its liability (courier and Internet companies) and the principal of non-discrimination, which calls for ensuring that electronic messages are admissible in court as evidence in commercial law suits. Despite the existence of international attempts to regulate e-commerce, Sahaydachny underscored the fact that the regulatory approach for defining the process of conducting commerce electronically on a global level is still being formulated.
Joining the Internet economy and turning Jordan into a hub for electronic business is one of the pillars of the REACH Initiative document. “The use of e-commerce directly by national agencies would stimulate local private IT businesses and provide the needed market base from which FDI and job growth can be bolstered.
As part of this national action, the government sector can assist the IT industry by developing the laws and regulations conducive to e-commerce,” explained co-leader of the REACH 2.0 Infrastructure Committee, Maher Mouasher. — (Jordan Times)
