thecoinrise.com
The Law Commission of England and Wales has announced the launch of a legal reform review project that is commissioned by the government with the aim of providing clarity on how private international rules can apply to emerging technology, such as digital assets and electronic trade documents, especially the legal challenges.
Explicitly, the reform project which is tagged “Digital Assets: Which Law, Which Court?”, will seek to discover the potential international legal challenges of international law surrounding emerging technologies like cryptocurrencies, Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and electronic trade documents.
The hike in the use of digital technologies which most times rely on blockchain technology has caused a lot of conflicts and disagreements which in turn has led to legal uncertainties for users, organizations, and governments especially in the United Kingdom, even as the country aspires to become the global hub of crypto.
Digital Assets: Which Law, Which Court?
Attempting to illustrate the use cases of this reform project, a few examples were outlined in the document. “when a digital asset is hosted on a decentralized, distributed ledger – such as a blockchain – where is it located? And if transferred or misappropriated, where has it moved from, and where has it moved to?”
It wants to identify the international laws which are applicable to these tech-related disputes including the court that has the right to settle such disputes.
Sponsored by the Ministry of Justice, this reform project will also handle the issue of disputes arising from digital location “because digital assets are intangible and often distributed, their geographical location can be hard to pinpoint, creating an array of legal issues.”
The government-commissioned project is aimed at making intelligent recommendations for legal reforms which will keep the United Kingdom laws updated and relevant in terms of emerging nascent technologies. If successful, the updated reforms will be set for publishing in Q2 of 2023 for public consultation.
According to the roadmap of the reform project, “Digital Assets: Which Law, Which Court?” will be carried out in five phases.
The five phases in ascending order are initiation, pre-consultation, consultation, policy development and reported. Currently, the reform project has reached the pre-consultation stage and will move over to the consultation phase in the near future.