Electronic Data Interchange Agreements: Private Contracting Toward a Global Environment

With the growth in the use of electronic communications technologies to communicate important business and trade information, the size of the earth, although it may remain at the present 7,900 miles in diameter, is rapidly shrinking. In a matter of seconds, commercial trade data can be exchanged between parties thousands of miles apart, leading to the establishment of new business relationships. In the emerging new global economy, data, information, goods, and services are being exchanged internationally. No longer are parties to a commercial transaction bound by artificial national boundaries with their accompanying sets of domestic legal rules.

Over the past few years, rule-making on the international scene the drafting or crafting of several international codifications - has contributed to the evolution of a commercial code to govern international commercial transactions.