Smart Contracts and the Courts

Abstract

Chapter 15 derives some general features of smart contracts by examining the technological approach for these contracts proposed by Ethereum and Solidity language. It relies on the concept of ‘interfaces’ to designate the relationships between the computer code of a smart contract and other external elements. According to this chapter, these interfaces are the exact locations of the legal connections between a specific piece of software and the real world. In particular, it argues that the smart contract environment is not a ‘lawyer-free environment’ due to the fact that smart contracts would necessarily interfere with real world persons or institutions that would by the nature of our societies lead to legal issues.