The Legal Problems of Blockchain Technology in Cross-border E-Commerce

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62517/jel.202414403

Author(s)

Shuanger Wu*

Affiliation(s)

Department of Law, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China *Corresponding Author.

Abstract

With the continuous popularization of e-commerce platforms at China and abroad in the Internet era, cross-border e-commerce trade has become an irreversible trend. However, the transaction process involves domestic and foreign logistics, cross-border payment and cross-border flow of data, which inevitably leads to many legal problems that will not arise compared to simple domestic exchanges. Currently, blockchain technology can solve payment, dispute resolution and other problems in cross-border e-commerce by using the characteristics of multi-party coordination, immutability, traceability, verifiability, decentralization, de-trust and anonymity. However, after the application of blockchain technology transforms traditional contracts into smart contract in cross-border e-commerce, the identification of its nature is controversial. And automatic enforcement makes it difficult to determine the criteria for proprietary right alternation. While solving the problem of high cost of cross-border payment, blockchain technology also has problems such as lack of supervision, information leakage and risks caused by imperfect basic technology. In addition, the application of blockchain technology has created new problems in the application of laws and the determination of courts of jurisdiction for cross-border e-commerce dispute resolution. The existence of the above problems will affect the healthy development of cross-border e-commerce in the future. Based on the existing literature, the author discusses how to solve the legal problems arising from the application of blockchain technology in cross-border e-commerce through case analysis.

Keywords

Smart Contract; Jurisdiction Connection Point; Cross-border Payment; Cross-border Logistics; Application of Law

References

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