Smart contracts are contracts essentially in form of Computer Codes, where the terms of the contract are enforced by the logic of the programâs execution. They do not require judgement or skill of any specialist. This allows us to form a vastly strong system of checks-and-balances, in a trust-less and decentralised manner. Smart contracts also gain the benefit of global transferability, without sacrificing any local knowledge. Itâs both cost and time effective. Smart Contracts would dramatically reduce the costs of developing, maintain and securing our relationships. Itâs very similar to an online Chessboard game, where the players would design the rules of the game before they are willing to play. And once the rules are agreed on, the Contract would act as a board manager, this allows the parties to move freely but within the rules of the game. Although, enforceability is a challenge to proper working of Smart Contracts, many international conventions can be used to govern the working of such contracts. There exists a clear lack of theoretical framework in this respect. This paper tries to draw out such a theoretical framework by identifying the different modes for regulating and enforcing smart contracts in multiple jurisdictions. Establishment of a legal framework regulating Smart Contracts would be a giant leap in the field of Contractual Laws.
The hype over bitcoins has been compared to the tulip mania in 17th century Netherlands and it has spawned a host of similar cryptocurrencies. As it has gained in popularity, the law has approached the subject warily, mostly from a regulatory perspective. However, no comprehensive consideration of the fundamental nature of a bitcoin ownerâs private law relation to his/her/its bitcoins has been properly conducted. Whether or not bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies achieve mainstream adoption or remain of interest to only a niche audience, this question will inevitably have to be properly addressed. This paper proposes to consider if bitcoins might be recognised as the subject of property rights by Commonwealth courts and if so, what such rights ought to entail. It will begin with a careful consideration of the controversial question of the scope of the law of property before considering bitcoinâs place within the law of property (if any). What is the meaning of property in the common law? What fundamental differences exist between tangible and intangible property? If ownership of bitcoins is worthy of protection, what shape should it take? It suggests that the common law adopts a more expansive view of property than civilian systems and that it is thus able to accommodate bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies within its law of property. However, owing to their unusual nature, legal rights to them must take on a unique and unorthodox form. The code underlying Bitcoin also poses particular challenges to the law which this paper also addresses.
This chapter looks beyond the novelty of self-executing âsmart contractsâ in blockchain networks and explores developments against the background fact that commercial parties have, for centuries, used documentary credit to simulate autonomous performance. Blockchain-based smart contracts and documentary credit share three core functionalities which are essential to any effective autonomous performance, analogue or digitalâthey both (i) act through internalized media of exchange; (ii) operate as closed systems; and (iii) provide means of securing sufficient resources to guarantee contractual performance. Using these three functionalities as a framework, this chapter conducts a comparative analysis of mechanisms for effecting autonomous contractual performance in a commercial setting. From this comparison, a few hypotheses are drawn regarding the potential areas where smart contract technology is more likely to find fruitful application. In particular, the chapter considers potential limitations to applying smart contracts to scenarios beyond digital asset transfers, how dispute resolution mechanisms should be designed to complement (rather impair) the autonomous nature of contractual performance under smart contracts, and potential capital cost implications which might arise in some cases when parties seek to replace human intermediaries with smart contracts.
Long Finance identifies an appetite for âSmart Contractsâ in wholesale insurance. Sponsored by the London Market Group and conducted by Z/Yen, this research shows there are exciting prospects for the use of smart contracts in wholesale insurance*. The research included interviews with brokers, insurers, reinsurers, regulators and trade bodies from across the sector, together with discussions with technical experts.
Smart contracts translate legal contract terms directly into executable computer code within a business process. This creates a rigorous link between the legal contract and its operational implementation. By enabling closer integration between back office, business areas, and negotiation of external contractual agreements, smart contracts can improve efficiency, reduce errors, and improve maintainability as business, regulatory, and contractual environments change.
The report identifies five broad areas where smart contracts could be applied in wholesale insurance: Process, Product, Portal, Performance, and Privacy. Processes in wholesale insurance are particularly complex, with complicated contracts managed through a network of clients, brokers, insurers, reinsurers, external providers such as loss adjusters, and central market organisations, often crossing and recrossing national boundaries. Smart contracts offer the possibility of making processes more transparent and maintainable, reducing the need for manual intervention and reducing costs and error rates. Smart contracts could also support new product features or allow new classes of products where the risk is defined using complex analysis of âbig dataâ. They could support new automated distributed channels for insurers through the use of internet portals, making it economic to transact more standardised products with smaller clients. By guaranteeing confidentiality of granular data, they could facilitate sharing of aggregate data to provide aggregated industry data and indices. They could reduce barriers to sharing They could also be used in the analysis and management of risk and claims, improving overall performance of insurers. Privacy legislation is an important area where smart contracts could help provide âsmart complianceâ â linking back office processes to the explicit wording of statute and regulation.
The report highlights examples of where individual firms, âcoalitions of the willingâ, or cross market initiatives, could drive specific smart contract applications to provide business benefits.
The following table summarises the potential benefits of each of these five areas, both to Market firms and to clients. The benefits of cost, accuracy, and speed accrue directly to the Market, although the net effects should include at least some reduction of premium costs to the client. Oversight of the market should also be simpler and more effective with better information. âRisk managementâ refers particularly to preventing losses or mitigating the impact of losses which do occur; it should be a direct benefit both to the firms and to the client. âClient facilityâ means that the client has the ability to purchase a policy with capabilities or at a price that was not previously available.
The large number of use cases in different areas which we found for STP and smart contracts indicates that these are technologies which could have a strong impact on the London Market over the next few years, and they should be part of the strategic debate within firms and at Market level, such as:
Commercial vehicle fleet insurance with access to client data;
Cybersecurity policy with access to client systems;
Hull insurance with access to telemetry;
Geolocation of shipping containers;
âFollower syndicateâ;
Parametric insurance;
ILWs;
Insuring intangibles with loss defined from Big Data;
War risk on demand;
Generator cover on demand;
Individualised insurance for car hire;
Cyber index and ILS.
There is no simple way to progress smart contracts, given the multi-party nature of the Market, and this report recognises that a core recommendation is that smart contracts remain on the strategic agenda for the Market as a whole and for individual firms for the foreseeable future. Smart contracts will be important for wholesale insurance and need to be part of future discussions and gain the attention needed to be built appropriately into future Market processing architecture. We suggest further development of the ideas surrounding:
âfollower syndicateâ proposal for applying smart contracts;
opportunity for smart contracts in implementing STP for settling payments;
smart contracts for contract wordings;
governance structure for sharing data that feeds smart contracts;
geolocation information feeding smart contracts.
Blockchain technology has received a disproportionate share of technology news reporting in recent years. As the database technology that solves the double-transaction problem for cryptocurrencies, blockchain has conventionalised digital ledger technology thinking and is envisaged to represent the future of financial platforms. Smart contract technology, the blockchain containers for processes and rules, is positioned to expedite automation in the post-trade infrastructure of financial systems. \nFintech disruptors discern blockchainĂs potential as a mechanism for disintermediation of the insurance value chain as an opportunity for innovation. Industry counter-measures to this threat include coalitions of financial institutions to evaluate potentially disruptive technologies. The fundamental questions facing the insurance industry are the end-consumerĂs trusting beliefs and propensity to use these emerging technologies in policy servicing systems. \nWe harness technology adoption theories, trust in technology research and the task-technology fit model to measure policyholder perceptions of blockchain among consumers in the life insurance industry. Responses from a sample of life insurance policyholders (n = 199) were used to measure concepts from three IS adoption theories. Our research finds evidence of policyholder trust in the reliability of blockchain technology, an understanding of the benefits of the technology and a willingness for it to be used in policy servicing.
Die Blockchain-Technologie ist zurzeit in aller Munde. Der vorliegende Aufsatz widmet sich Smart Contracts und deren Einordnung in das schweizerische Vertragsrecht. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf der Qualifikation möglicher RechtsverhÀltnisse zwischen Nutzern, Minern und Blockchain-Entwicklern sowie auf den Rechtsfolgen bei Diskrepanzen zwischen Smart Contracts und VertrÀgen im rechtlichen Sinne. Im Rahmen eines Ausblicks wird schliesslich die Frage erörtert, welche Bedeutung VertrÀgen in einer Zukunft mit sicheren, autonomen und pseudonymen Systemen zukommen wird.
Chris Reed, Uma M Sathyanarayan, Shuhui Ruan, Justine K. Collins
Blockchain technology allows the creation of distributed ledgers. These distribute control among the players rather than requiring a centralized database, and so can reduce costs and speed-up transactions. However, when it is used for assets which exist outside the blockchain itself, an unmodified adoption of the technology would bypass legal and regulatory requirements which, for these kinds of assets, cannot be bypassed without fundamental change to the law. Building those requirements into any blockchain-based system introduces features which are not necessary for performing its core functions, and we call these âlegal impuritiesâ. The most important legal impurities required are those relating to identification of the parties, and introducing the ability of a trusted third party to make modifications to the ledger. Not only does introducing these legal impurities make fundamental changes to the concept behind blockchain, but it is also essential that they are implemented in ways which do not threaten the integrity of the blockchain as evidence. This article has been produced by members of the Microsoft Cloud Computing Research Centre, a collaboration between the Cloud Legal Project, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London and the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge. The authors are grateful to members of the MCCRC team and to attendees at the fourth Annual MCCRC Symposium (Windsor, September 2017) for helpful comments and to Microsoft for the generous financial support that has made this project possible. Responsibility for views expressed, however, remain with the authors.
This paper gives an overview on smart contracts and assess their legal relevance. The first part, explains the notion of smart contract and provides simple examples of it. In the second part, we propose a legal analysis of smart contract. First, we explore how smart contracts can be relevant in the eyes of the law. Then we differentiate and assess smart contract with regards to their types. And finally, we look at chosen problematic of smart legal contracts.
âCode is lawâ refers to the idea that, with the advent of digital technology, code has progressively established itself as the predominant way to regulate the behavior of Internet users. Yet, while computer code can enforce rules more efficiently than legal code, it also comes with a series of limitations, mostly because it is difficult to transpose the ambiguity and flexibility of legal rules into a formalized language which can be interpreted by a machine. With the advent of blockchain technology and associated smart contracts, code is assuming an even stronger role in regulating peopleâs interactions over the Internet, as many contractual transactions get transposed into smart contract code. In this paper, we describe the shift from the traditional notion of âcode is lawâ (i.e., code having the effect of law) to the new conception of âlaw is codeâ (i.e., law being defined as code).
Spanish Abstract: Una de las primeras medidas planteadas para desarrollar la estrategia del âMercado Unico Digitalâ (Comunicacion de la Comision Europea de 5 de mayo de 2015) es la Propuesta de Directiva sobre determinados aspectos de los contratos de suministro de contenidos digitales de 9 de diciembre de 2015 [COM(2015) 634 final]. Ese texto afronta del dificil reto de adaptar las reglas tradicionales sobre la falta de conformidad de los bienes con el contrato de compraventa al nuevo escenario del âcontrato de suministroâ de contenidos digitales. En el presente estudio se abordan en primer lugar algunas cuestiones generales de la Propuesta de Directiva: el concepto amplio de âcontenidos digitalesâ, que incluye tambien âserviciosâ como el almacenamiento en la nube (cloud computing) o las redes sociales, la naturaleza juridica de contrato de suministro âque, con un enfoque funcional acertado, no se prejuzgaâ, la relacion de la Propuesta con otras normas europeas y la decision de incluir en su ambito de aplicacion tambien los contratos cuya contraprestacion fue no dineraria, en forma de datos; esta ultima solucion, que correctamente toma en consideracion el valor monetario de los datos, resulta demasiado restringida al incorporar el requisito de que los datos deban ser facilitado âactivamenteâ por el consumidor, lo cual es objeto de critica. En segundo lugar, en estas paginas se aborda el regimen de conformidad de los contenidos digitales con el contrato (arts. 6-9), el sistema de responsabilidad del proveedor tanto por falta de suministro o retraso como por falta de conformidad de lo suministrado (art. 10) y los remedios, acciones o formas de saneamiento aparejadas a esa responsabilidad (arts. 11-14).Este analisis trata de valorar los fundamentos y consecuencias de las reglas favorables y perjudiciales para los intereses de los consumidores y alerta sobre algunas carencias, incognitas y defectos que plantean ciertos articulos, para los que se ofrecen sugerencias de modificacion o interpretaciones que permitan una adecuada ponderacion de intereses. Asi, entre las reglas favorables a la posicion de los consumidores, se analizan y valoran positivamente las normas sobre carga de la prueba, la validez de la resolucion mediante notificacion por cualquier medio o las previsiones sobre la restitucion de las contraprestaciones tras la resolucion, en las que se presta especial cuidado a la recuperacion de los contenidos generados por el usuario. En cambio, entre las reglas que plantean mayores dudas y merecen clarificacion por efecto del enfoque de armonizacion maxima esta el saber si en caso de falta de suministro el consumidor solo dispone del derecho de resolucion inmediata (mas indemnizacion) o averiguar si se pretende que el muy limitado regimen de indemnizacion solo por dano economico al entorno digital del consumidor veta a los Estados miembros aprobar otras normas para garantizar otras indemnizaciones por otros danos. Tambien se defiende que los fines de la Propuesta de Directiva quedarian mejor cubiertos si se estableciesen normas uniformes sobre prescripcion de las acciones, a falta de plazo de garantia legal. Finalmente, este ensayo se muestra especialmente critico con algunas decisiones que son claramente perjudiciales a unos intereses legitimos de los consumidores que cabia esperar mas protegidos en esta Propuesta (por contraste con otras): en concreto, se sostiene que la norma deberia consagrar algunos parametros legales y objetivos minimos sobre las expectativas razonables de los consumidores, sin dar una primacia practicamente absoluta a lo establecido unilateralmente por el proveedor; se aboga por extender la resolucion inmediata y no solo subsidiaria a las faltas de conformidad mas graves que frustran totalmente el fin del contrato para el consumidor y se realiza una interpretacion del art. 12.5 que favorece cierta relajacion de los requisitos exigidos para resolver; o se propone admitir que el consumidor pueda suspender el pago del precio pendiente mientras no se produzca la puesta en conformidad.English Abstract: The Proposal for a directive on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content of 9 December 2015 [COM(2015) 634 final] (âthe Proposalâ) is one of the first measures to put into effect the Digital Single Market Strategy as set out in the European Commissionâs Communication of 5 May 2015. The Proposal takes up the challenge of adapting the traditional rules governing lack of conformity of goods under the law of sale to the new context of contracts for the supply of digital content. This paper will deal first with some general issues arising from the Proposal: its wide definition of âdigital contentâ, which embraces also such âservicesâ as cloud computing or social networks and platforms; the legal nature of the contract of supply âwhich is not predetermined, i.e., it is properly understood functionally rather than defined conceptuallyâ; the relationship between the Proposal and other European legal rules; and the decision to include within its scope contracts where the âcounter-performanceâ provided by the consumer for the supply of digital content is in the form of data rather than money. In the authorâs view, this last decision correctly takes account of the financial value of data, but the Proposalâs drafting is too narrow as it requires an âactiveâ role on the part of the consumer providing it. Secondly, the paper will analyse the regime of conformity of the digital content with the contract (arts. 6-9), the system of liability of the provider, both in respect of any failure to supply the digital content and of any lack of conformity of the content supplied (art. 10), and the remedies provided for these kinds of contractual non-performance (arts. 11-14).The resulting analysis reveals the extent to which the Proposal promotes or prejudices the interests of consumers, and it also indicates the gaps, uncertainties and defects in the scheme which it requires. The paper suggests changes to the text of the Proposal itself and, where appropriate, the way in which the existing text should be interpreted so as to take into account all the interests at stake. Among the more consumer-friendly rules, those on burden of proof, the validity of termination by notice by any means, and restitution of âcounter-performancesâ after termination of the contract (with particular care being taken so as to allow the retrieval of digital content generated by consumers) are to be welcomed. On the other hand, the maximum harmonization which the Proposal requires poses difficult questions in relation to those rules which are in need of further clarification by the legislator, for example, whether a consumer can terminate immediately (and claim limited damages) only in the case of any failure to supply, or whether the Proposalâs intention is that the very limited rule on the right to recover economic damage to the digital environment of the consumer precludes Member States from allowing the consumer to recover damages in respect of other types of damage. Furthermore, this paper argues that the aims of the Proposal would be better achieved if it provided a set of uniform rules on prescription with a long period, in the absence of a time limitation for liability of the supplier and for the reversal of the burden of proof. It criticises some legislative decisions that are definitely detrimental to certain legitimate interests of consumers in circumstances where a comparison with other legal rules and proposals would lead one to think that they should be better protected. In particular, the Proposal should include some legislative, objective and not just subsidiary standards or criteria on the reasonable expectations of consumers, instead of giving almost full priority to what the supplier unilaterally established in the contract. Moreover, termination should be granted to consumers immediately rather than putting this remedy at a secondary level, at least for cases of gross lack of conformity which completely frustrate the purpose of the contract from the beginning; in the absence of such a legal change, an interpretation of art. 12.5 is suggested to soften the requirements necessary for termination of the contract. Finally, the consumer should be entitled to withhold payment of any outstanding part of the price until the supplier has brought the digital content into conformity with the contract.
By Riikka Koulu. As cross-border online transactions increase the issue of cross-border dispute resolution and enforcement becomes more and more topical. Disputes arising from e-commerce are seldom taken into the public courts and therefore online dispute resolution (ODR) is becoming a mainstream solution for resolving them. Simultaneously, different applications and possibilities of blockchain technologies such as cryptocurrencies have caught the attention of both computer scientists and legal scholars, increasingly gaining momentum. However, the potential of blockchains reach further than their use as a currency: they can be used for the decentralised execution of programmable contracts known as smart contracts, completely without the need for intermediaries like e-commerce sites, credit card companies or courts. These possibilities have not previously been discussed in relation to dispute resolution. This article provides an introduction to this new technological possibility by examining self-executing smart contracts that utilise novel blockchain technologies. To demonstrate the logic behind smart contracts more concretely, a weather bet (i.e. a bet on what the weather is going to be in a given location) is translated into a programmable smart contract and then discussed in lines of code with further explanations. In addition to this, the author suggests that smart contracts could also be employed for the purposes of dispute resolution, which might provide a solution for the problem of enforcing ODR decisions. Instead of normative analysis, the article provides an introductory analysis of the legal implications that the blockchain technology has outside its application as virtual currency.
Can the parties to a conctract agree that the consideration should be paid in bitcoins? Or will this obligation be qualified as the delivery of 'objects'?
De executeur in een nalatenschap met bitcoins en andere âdigitale bezittingenâ In deze bijdrage gaat de auteur op zoek naar wat de verplichtingen zijn die de executeur heeft ten aanzien van de onlinenalatenschap. Moet een executeur actief op zoek naar bitcoins en andere digitale bezittingen? Hoever gaat zijn onderzoeksplicht in een onlinenalatenschap? Ook gaat de auteur kort in op de erfbelasting en digitale bezittingen: de executeur moet ook hier aangifte van doen.
Auctions have a long history, having been recorded as early as 500 B.C. [Auction Theory, Academic Press, San Diego, USA, 2002]. Nowadays, electronic auctions have been a great success and are increasingly used in various applications, including high performance computing [Concurrency and Computatio n: Practice and Experience 14(13â15) (2002), 1507â1542]. Many cryptographic protocols have been proposed to address the various security requirements of these electronic transactions, in particular to ensure privacy. Brandt [International Journal of Information Security 5 (2006), 201â216] developed a protocol that computes the winner using homomorphic operations on a distributed ElGamal encryption of the bids. He claimed that it ensures full privacy of the bidders, i.e. no information apart from the winner and the winning price is leaked. We first show that this protocol â when using malleable interactive zero-knowledge proofs â is vulnerable to attacks by dishonest bidders. Such bidders can manipulate the publicly available data in a way that allows the seller to deduce all participantsâ bids. We provide an efficient parallelized implementation of the protocol and the attack to show its practicality. Additionally we discuss some issues with verifiability as well as attacks on non-repudiation, fairness and the privacy of individual bidders exploiting authentication problems.
Smart contracts combine protocols with user interfaces to formalize and secure relationships over computer networks. Objectives and principles for the design of these systems are derived from legal principles, economic theory, and theories of reliable and secure protocols. Similarities and differences between smart contracts and traditional business procedures based on written contracts, controls, and static forms are discussed. By using cryptographic and other security mechanisms, we can secure many algorithmically specifiable relationships from breach by principals, and from eavesdropping or malicious interference by third parties, up to considerations of time, user interface, and completeness of the algorithmic specification. This article discusses protocols with application in important contracting areas, including credit, content rights management, payment systems, and contracts with bearer.
B. Balamurugan, T. Poongodi, M. R. Manu, S. Karthikeyan · 5 authors
The moving image archive of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) includes a copy of the film The Double Day (1975), cataloged in the series Moving Images Relating to International Development Programs and Activities, 1979â1991, a collection of more than eight hundred titles âcreated to provide information on assistance programs supported by the Agency for International Development (AID).â1 Yet, The Double Day does not, in fact, directly depict or engage with any specific development or aid initiative. Instead, the filmâdirected by US-based Brazilian filmmaker Helena Solberg as part of the International Womenâs Film Project collective and described as âthe first Latin American feminist documentaryââexamines the gendered dynamics of paid and unpaid labor through the testimonies of women from Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Mexico.2 Its presence in the USAID archive is likely a consequence of its funding history, having received support from the Inter-American Foundation, a USAID-affiliated entity; the development agencies of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; the United Nations Development Program; and US philanthropist Calvin Cafritz.3These transnational funding structures not only enabled the filmâs production but also determined its archival destination, which renders legible its place within the history of international development.4 The Double Dayâs institutional trajectory reflects the shifting configurations of aid, gender, and media during a historic moment when women were being repositioned at the center of what Arturo Escobar has described as developmentâs âregimes of visuality.â5 Especially relevant to The Double Dayâs production and exhibition was the international institutional framework of Women in Development (WID). Emerging in the early 1970s and culminating in United Nationsâ proclamation of 1975 as International Womenâs Year, WID emphasized womenâs participation in the global economy as both an index and mechanism of development. Indeed, The Double Day premiered at the World Conference of the International Womenâs Year, held in Mexico City.6 Within this context, the film forms part of a broader trajectory of media use by international organizations that intensified during the 1970sâas best exemplified by Media Habitat, a collection of 236 documentary films commissioned by the United Nations to represent urban and rural development initiatives for the 1976 Habitat Conference on Human Settlements in Vancouver. As a policy-shaping initiative, Media Habitat primarily featured films from the Global South intended not only to illustrate but also to help codify standardized audiovisual markers of âunderdevelopmentâ that determined access to the emerging global economic order and to international aid.7Framed in relation to these international institutions and their operations, The Double Day could similarly be considered âdevelopment mediaââexemplifying the type of nonfiction media produced and distributed outside of the commercial film circuits whose aspects and subcategories have been variously described in scholarship as nontheatrical, useful, sponsored, institutional, industrial, educational, or nonprofessional/amateur.8 Scholars working in this area have emphasized the institutional contexts of such mediaâs production and exhibition infrastructures as shaping its instrumentalized effects. From a feminist perspective, such an approach is crucial to grappling with the broader question of how âgender impacts [these worksâ] shape, content, and trajectories.â9 Yet we also argue that, taken in isolation, the institutional and infrastructural contexts are insufficient to account for the complex relationship between media and development, potentially not only limiting our understanding of the reach and impact of development but also distorting our interpretive conclusions. For example, to categorize The Double Day as âdevelopment mediaâ is to overlook the filmâs place within Solbergâs directorial oeuvre, as well as within the histories of both transnational womenâs filmmaking and radical Latin American documentary cinema to which it simultaneously belongs. Such exclusive framing is especially limiting given that women globally were disproportionately engaged in nonfiction production throughout the twentieth centuryâsometimes by political choice but more often due to structural exclusions from fiction filmmaking. Even in nonfiction historiography, however, institutional media has remained particularly marginal, reinforcing hierarchies that separate such works from the aesthetic and authorial frameworks through which film history has been constructed.10 This marginalization not only tends to erase womenâs contributions but also presumes a âweakâ or derivative authorship, rendering these films unworthy of the interpretive attention needed to apprehend their aesthetic and political complexity.11 The same dynamic is likely to structure assumptions about âdevelopment mediaâ as well.Categorizing The Double Day exclusively within this category would further prompt us to assume top-down institutional analyses that have been characteristic of both institutional media methodologies and the scholarship on development at large. This, in turn, would risk obscuring this filmâs radical Marxist approach to womenâs labor as well as its concrete contribution to activism and its attendant grassroot structures. In Mexico City, The Double Day became a catalyst for feminist solidarity in practice when one of the filmâs protagonists, Bolivian activist and trade unionist Domitila Barrios de Chungara, was invited to participate in the Tribune of Non-Governmental Organizations held alongside the official UN conference.12 There, Barrios de Chungara challenged Western feminist priorities by reframing the debate around labor, class, and imperialism, helping to articulate a shared Third World feminist agenda that significantly departed from the developmentalist vision of the United Nations and USAID.13 Seen through the lens of activist media, The Double Day helped forge transnational solidarity networks by enabling information exchange across the diverse voices that shaped its makingâfrom the women featured in the film to the activists who circulated itârevealing a considerably more dynamic interplay between institutional and grassroots or contingent media practices.Moreover, the filmâs Latin American contextâreflected in Solbergâs formation in Brazil as the only woman in Cinema Novo, its focus on women from across the region, and its premiere and key reception in Mexico Cityârequires grappling with the regional specificities of the very notion of development in its multiple iterations.14 Far from being an epistemological and political framework imposed solely by the Global North, both the practices of development and the theoretical foundations of developmentalism (understood as a broad and polysemic set of discourses) were shaped through the active participation of Latin American economists.15 Within this iteration, underdevelopment, as a constitutive notion of developmentalism, became central to a distinctly critical strand, which by the late 1960s became known as the dependency theory.16 This same approach is reflected in some of the best-known Latin American radical film manifestos of the time, arising precisely from the same milieus to which Solberg belonged.17These various considerations of the filmâs history illustrate the methodological challenges confronting feminist scholars seeking to assess the impact of development on media projects, theories, and practices. To disregard the developmentalist context of such works by emphasizing their political aesthetics and affects risks reproducing a romanticized narrative of heroic resistance (albeit from a feminist perspective). Yet to engage exclusively with their institutional and material infrastructures risks naturalizing developmentalismâs political and epistemological foundations at the expense of the goals and beliefs of the many women who participated in these projects. The contradictions and ambivalences that animate such histories call for feminist frameworks capable of holding both institutional complicity and radical possibility in view.This challenge resonates with ongoing debates about the politics of the archive and what Allyson Field has termed âthe practice of informed speculation.â18 As she reminds us, feminist, queer, and decolonial methodologies have long taught us to âpress at the limitsâ of the archive to âinoculate our scholarship against our evidenceâs afflictions.â19 The concern that the evidence we draw on in our analysis reproduces the very structures and blind spots of the dominant ideology and therefore shapes and delimits our interpretation becomes particularly urgent when engaging the developmentalist media corpus. Informed speculation offers an alternative by inviting the experimental, creative, and speculative rewriting of history, mobilizing the archive âin a project that runs counter to the original purpose, or the imperative to preserve, or the conditions that led to erasure.â20 Yet, as Field cautions, such speculative gestures must remain grounded in a deep and âintimate familiarity with the archiveâ that we are working with and against. Building on this imperative, we suggest that the developmentalist archive, in particular, demands expansion and critical reconsideration in ways that unsettle the very disciplinary frameworks through which it has been studied as well as the larger institutional contexts for such knowledge production.Our focus on The Double Day in the opening of this introduction thus foregrounds the entanglements of institutional and grassroots forces, local and international contexts, structural and interpersonal relations, and creative and economic factors that have shaped not only this film but the broader ecosystem of development media projectsâand their preservationâover time. Addressing such a constellation involves transgressing methodologically entrenched divisions between political economy and aesthetics, between material infrastructures and affective regimes; reckoning with divergent periodizations across film history and world economics; and situating these within the local specificities of womenâs movements and international institutional programs. It also demands attentiveness to the coexistence of multiple, and sometimes competing, understandings of developmentâeach historically, geographically, and ideologically situated.We imagine this special issue as an opening toward a critical dialogue, not only about how such an approach might be enacted in practice but also about the far-reaching ways development paradigms have shaped both our objects of study and the contours of the field itself. The decision to center institutionally sponsored films across all the essays in this issue is deliberate and enables us to highlight institutional critique as a vital methodological imperative within our analytical framework. Created within the frameworks of international organizations, state agencies, or NGOs, these filmsâ histories make legible the institutional logics that underwrite their production. Yet our critique does not stop at these specific entities. Rather, we argue for a broader interrogation of the political conditions and institutional infrastructures that shape media and knowledge production more generally. This includes contemporary corporations embedded in the digital platform economy, from streaming services to the rapid expansion of AI. Equally critical is a reflexive examination of academia itself, where departments of economics, political science, and centers for development have played a formative role in producing and legitimizing developmentalist theories and policy frameworks. While the humanities and arts have at times offered critical alternatives, they have also frequently mirrored and reinforced many of the same developmentalist assumptions. A feminist analysis of the nexus between development and media must therefore unsettle not only dominant archives but also the institutional and disciplinary foundations of our own scholarly practices.As scholars, we share the complex position of navigating the same tensions between institutional complicity and emancipatory aspiration as many of the media-makers whose work we study. Mirroring our subjects is also the transnational, collective mode of this special issueâs own production as it emerges from an ongoing informal working group we have sustained over several years. While relying on institutional and disciplinary affordancesâsuch as university funding for conferences or access to academic publishing platformsâwe have been working toward creating a community that exceeds, and often resists, the prevailing logics of our academic institutions. Our aim has been to create a space for shared inquiry and mutual support that pushes back against disciplinary siloing and technocratic neoliberal assessment modes of both labor and knowledge productionâand this certainly extends to our experience collaborating with the journal editors throughout the publication process. Our goal has been to examine both the persistence and variability of developmentalism, understood as what Gustavo Esteva calls a âpowerful but fragile semantic constellation,â as a conceptual formation that has historically inspired, legitimized, and mobilized media projects across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.21 And gendered biopolitics, from population control to gender mainstreaming, have remained integral to development policies and media practices, recurring across formats from institutional newsreels to film festivals.We share the conviction that, far beyond the history of nonfiction institutional media, development (as both a broad ideological project and a network of material and institutional practices) and developmentalism (as a set of discourses and theoretical models associated with development) have exerted a far-reaching influence on film and media cultures at large. As such, they must be treated as a major force in shaping global film and media systems and also the many ongoing assumptions behind their critical discourses. The discipline of communication studies was founded on modernization theory governed by Cold War goals of dissemination of Western liberal democracy around the world, while âan area studies framework allowed compartmentalizing Western and non-Western outcomes of technologies that were always claimed to be universal.â22 Despite critique from postcolonial and critical race studies, many of these frameworks have remained foundational for media theory.23 In historical scholarship, as we increasingly move beyond âmodernityâ as a dominant conceptual anchor, engaging with practices and discourses of development opens more precise analytical pathways. These film and mediaâs entanglements with the logics of and economic and the associated with as well as their conceptual underdevelopment, and impact in as diverse as and of media aesthetic and paradigms in film and film and funding are developmentalist assumptions to the they to underwrite the narrative and logics of and global media from the structure of the film to the cultures of argue that a examination of the historical entanglements between film and developmentalist aesthetics, modes of as well as infrastructures and critical the and that our contemporary media is a of the historical contours of development as a field of inquiry embedded within a of some of the methodologies by the featured in this special a of this complex history, to the larger at in media, development, and gender all its development a it as an of be with practices as divergent as and in In as we work on this the of the of the USAID the ideological that have the history of international the and of this on the global its a from development as a global practice and as an institutional and which over the has as a with its own media Yet or does not erase the historical impact of these the contradictions they have reflected and over the as the of development several crucial to the economic theories of development initiatives to and through the of the development an international policy framework at from the Global to the of the Global the by the political role of and the of the International the on was challenged by dependency theory and at development as global structural the neoliberal of the the Programs by the and World imposed and as conditions for and forms of assistance became known as the major markers for international development development has moving beyond economic to such as the Human Development and the Development and from international organizations such as the United Nations to a broader network of These frameworks increasingly of and liberal of and with what in many ways to various while the of the to developmentâs epistemological more scholarship has toward a of its and material the field has to a of and critical by and scholars, which development as a dynamic of conceptual and political to these the studies in this special issue call for sustained analysis in place of In we draw from a of and that in of of gender and to this special issue engage that and from Mexico to contemporary specific local historical of global distinctly feminist methodologies as well as attention to studies that this issue a in the global history of development on and documentary work in Mexico how early women infrastructures as of while US films an early of state and transnational on a outside the Global as the of developmentalist both the and markers of development media, its to the and Latin central grounded in archival also womenâs in transnational and the methodological of archives on study of the series to a a digital media not by but by women not as but as subjects and within circuits of neoliberal and the aesthetics and of how developmentâs has models of to contemporary neoliberal paradigms of and analysis how digital and gender and practices, discourses on and their of these essays the of some of the historical of developmentalist as the question of the role of the state within such on a notion of economic as a and the dominant of development that the state as the for and through infrastructural projects. This understanding of development was shared across both of the as well as in the Third The United and the increasingly mobilized international in the of the modes of international at the postcolonial of policy and ideological These programs were at the expansion of their and of while with the and decolonial of The conceptual between modernization and development that the Cold in of and hierarchies of that long and As an of postcolonial their role as of international aid concern about the of Western development projects. In alternative across the Global South that to structural between and through policies of and In many they were further the global structures. In Latin for example, this approach was through organizations such as the United Nations for Latin and the both developmentalist projects and their have taken many forms historically, and they have and they have been to a of projects, and postcolonial and development has been and in ways and with frequently political While many of these alternative frameworks the embedded in dominant Western they often technocratic and assumptions. gender and gender as for the of to be shaped by This becomes particularly in the media that of development where women frequently a crucial associated with and women were as both the subjects and of their participation in the and labor often as the index of In this study of from the 1970s how women were as of this as these about womenâs urban and recurring and of a within the own of and critique that official examination of archives and enables a feminist interrogation of their mobilizing a of the in the of contribution to this issue similarly the of a dynamic within as well as across ideological the of womenâs and the media of the and as active in labor and as integral to the technocratic women became of as their labor remained a of and analysis and archival with attention to the specific of and It also transnational that as a and affective a nexus of and practices through which gender, media, and developmentalism one film not as a but as part of the of alongside and work a broader concern of this special media as a of developmentalist projects. The debates the World and which international such as the United Nations and a critical historical for such primarily by postcolonial and of the for the of media and communication infrastructures in as to counter Western The a between and economic how systems of media and reinforced global hierarchies of and in an agenda that supported and alternative media infrastructures across postcolonial contexts, the framework gender as an analytical This âgender in the 1970s by of the Women in Development in relation to The Double its political critique of with its broader to center women in development policy through and This was also in of media, which was shaped by its international reach and audiovisual production and and and Yet, as WID institutional it also to the and of the womenâs development programs often by in These were by a of studies, and on and the to of womenâs presence and through the of their economic and In this on the filmmaker this history directly by the and of for women by the WID framework during the with and agencies the of and against Women in at the of the neoliberal turn, when institutional media often the only to access and support to projects. The an by this dynamic as of the from the Global South are to engage with the developmentalist assumptions funding models that their similarly the as a in developmentalist media history by the of and centers on the Film a between of and the attention toward the and labor by and work was foundational the of and the of audiovisual aid, as both a of development projects and a critical for their the in this issue argue for a with media, gender, and developmentalism as an field of that is and shaped by feminist and methodologies and that challenge the entanglements between academic knowledge production and and technocratic development And while methodological these dynamics at the structural the of feminist in media and cinema by this the very a