Browsing by Subject "Data"

There will always be a gap between the law and technology, as technology develops at a much faster pace than the law. Globalization in general, internationalization of trade, and technological development towards more digital economies accurately identify the need to modernize law. This thesis focuses on the modernization of international sales law through its most celebrated instrument, the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (the CISG). Two different methods of modernization are assessed: the drafting of a new international convention on sales law, and modernization from the inside out through autonomous interpretation of the CISG text, and the latter is emphasized as the more feasible method of modernization. The autonomous interpretation method for expansion of application of the CISG is applied to contracts for the international sale of datasets of personal data in four steps: grammatical and systematic interpretation, scholarly writing and jurisprudence, general principles of the CISG, and assessing whether the result is fit for and justified by the CISG as a whole. Personal data is selected as an example due to the increase in its trade internationally, and its importance as a commodity. It is concluded that drafting a new treaty is politically, diplomatically, and financially too expensive. Hence, the use of autonomous interpretation as method of modernization is preferred. The application of the CISG to contracts on international sale of datasets of personal data is possible, if Contracting States and their decision-makers follow the new general principle of broad interpretation that allows for modernization of the CISG.