UNCITRAL Model Laws on Digital Trade: Electronic Transferable Records, Digital Identity and Trust Services

by Luca G Castellani, John Linarelli (Editor), Teresa Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell (Editor)

Overview

This book provides a detailed analysis of two UNCITRAL texts: the Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) and the Model Law on the Use and Cross-border Recognition of Identity Management and Trust Services (MLIT).

The MLETR is the legal tool that enables the use of trade documents such as bills of lading and promissory notes in electronic form. The book discusses in depth core MLETR provisions such as those on scope of application, functional equivalence, and reliability standards. It illustrates national variations in enactment techniques and substantive content in laws enacting MLETR, including in France, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.

The MLIT provides the legal framework to manage identity management and trust services, including electronic signatures. The book explains the different approaches to giving legal recognition and effect to identity management and trust services ('ex-ante', 'ex-post' and 'two-tier'), both domestically and across borders, highlighting advantages and disadvantages vis-à-vis the policy goals of legal predictability and business flexibility. It discusses the legal framework to accommodate functions and needs of identity management. It also describes trust services, with a focus on electronic signatures, against the background of pre-existing UNCITRAL texts, and takes into account the revised EU eIDAS Regulation.

Providing an article-by-article commentary as well as an overview of implementation trends for both instruments, the book is a fundamental resource for commercial, maritime and banking lawyers, digital economy policymakers, legislative drafters, supply chain management and paperless trade specialists, and for anyone interested in understanding the legal aspects of the transition from documents to data in trade.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781509937417
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/18/2025
Series:	Hart Studies in Commercial and Financial Law
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

John Linarelli is Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh, USA.

Teresa Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell is Associate Professor of Commercial Law at University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain. She is also currently Sir Roy Goode Scholar at UNIDROIT, Rome (2021-22) and previously held the Chair of Excellence at Harris Manchester College, Oxford University.

Teresa is an arbitrator at the Madrid Court of Arbitration and the Spanish Court of Arbitration, a member of the Spanish Advertising Standards Tribunal (Autocontrol), member of the European Commission Expert Group on Liability and New Technologies, member of European Union Expert Group for the Observatory on the Online Platform Economy, Delegate for Spain before UNIDROIT and UNCITRAL Working Group VI on Security Interests, and member nominated by UNIDROIT of the Expert Study Group on a Fourth Protocol for the Cape Town Convention on International Security Interests.

She has held fellowships at the European Central Bank Legal Research Programme 2018 with a project on Fintech regulation, the Transatlantic Technology Law Forum, Stanford Law School, and was a Marie Curie Fellow at the Centre of European Law and Politics (ZERP), University of Bremen. In addition she has held visiting professorships at Oxford University, Toulouse 1 University Capitole, Columbia Law School, Tulane University Law School, the University of the Andes, the University of Turin, the University of Tokyo and University College London.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Legislation on Electronic Transferable Records Predating the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records
3. The UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records
4. Enacting the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records
5. The UNCITRAL Model Law on the Use and Cross-border Recognition of Identity Management and Trust Services
6. Identity Management
7. Trust Services
8. Cross-border Recognition and Cooperation in Identity Management and Trust Services
9. Trends and Perspectives in the Adoption and Implementation of Uniform Digital Trade Laws