The unique characteristics of sovereign debt finance provide fertile ground for opportunistic behavior and intractable disputes among states and their creditors. Lacking reliable contractual enforcement mechanisms and formal bankruptcy procedures, the sovereign debt restructuring process is hampered by fragmentation, costly standoffs, and unpredictable outcomes. The result is a non-system of ad hoc, decentralized negotiations and litigation that some fear is perpetually at risk of falling apart. To address these concerns, recent years have seen renewed efforts to fix sovereign debt through soft law, public-private collaboration, and informal governance mechanisms, which this Article collectively refers to as sovereign debt governance. This Article focuses on one of the most prominent proposed reforms in sovereign debt governance: the use of creditor committees to facilitate engagement between a sovereign debtor and its private external creditors. Notwithstanding the uniqueness of sovereign debt in international law and financial regulation, we explain how the debtor-creditor relationship reflects a fundamental governance challenge amidst individual distrust and collective disorder. This challenge suggests that the sovereign debt restructuring process can be improved by reforming the procedural rules and institutional frameworks that govern debtor-creditor engagement. To assess this proposition, we examine the use of creditor committees in the current era of sovereign debt, focusing on factors that influence the conduct of debtors and their creditors vis-a-vis each other. Drawing on our observations, we consider the potential value and limitations of creditor committees in the context of sovereign debt governance.
Blockchain technology is provoking significant transformations in the logistics industry, creating a complex environment that challenges business change. This study endeavors to advance the research regarding blockchain-based logistics management by identifying tensions and paradoxes accompanying blockchain adoption for handling digital freight information. Addressing the gap of scarce empirical research on adopting this technology, we conducted 12 expert interviews in the German logistics industry. While confirming and advancing previous research, we found several incompatibilities between the technology and its application, as practitioners tend to adopt blockchain features selectively instead of full acceptance of the respective privacy model. Our analysis reveals that the automation of several functionalities on a platform is among the features of blockchains with the greatest potential to create change in handling digital freight information when related governance mechanisms are in place. Building on these findings, the study proposes main strategies to manage the observed tensions, particularly separation, differentiation, and integration strategies. Thereby, our research contributes to the understanding of digital transformations based on immutability and disintermediation when logistics service providers are engaged in blockchain projects.
This report is the first of a series of brief papers relating to the main legal aspects of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The aim is to highlight NFT characteristics and provide an extensive but not exhaustive overview of the legal classification and frameworks across the globe. The report places a special focus on EU laws, but it is not limited to this.
Smart contracts promise to materialize a lifelong dream as they purport to be self-executing, cost-efficient, free of human error and other inefficiencies commonly attributed to traditional contracts. Nevertheless, the fact that smart contracts originate from and embody human interactions also makes them imperfect and prone to be affected by the shortcomings of the relationships that they regulate. This chapter explores some of the most important questions raised by the idea of smart contracts, including their contours and substance, whether they should be regarded as contracts or not, their relationship with the legal system (both domestic and international) and the comparison between smart contracts and traditional contracts. The rigidity, tamper-proof nature, self-sufficiency and completeness of smart contracts are generally viewed as important features, which make them particularly attractive for international commercial transactions where language, culture, different legal standards and other differences are usually the source of tension besides raising transaction costs. Smart legal contracts, however, are not a complete replacement either for traditional contracts, or for all human involvement in commerce.
The paper analyzes the potential impact of blockchain technology and smart contracts on the shipping industry. As the shipping industry represents a complex system of various actions that have to be controlled and registered, blockchain technology could serve as a tool to allow the streamlining of numerous processes, whilst at the same time taking the human factor out of multiple elements where trust between involved parties is an issue. The authors therefore first present how blockchain technology works and what smart contracts are, in order to give an insight into their applicability in the shipping sector. After a general overview of the technological and legal characteristics of blockchain technology and smart contracts, the authors present examples of relevant subjects, relations, and contracts in the shipping industry. Based on the charter party, a key contract in the shipping industry, the authors present the existing problems which could potentially be solved using blockchain technology. Besides the benefits of blockchain technologies, the authors furthermore point out the existing deficiencies that still make blockchain technology hard to apply in legal relations within the shipping industry. Based on these insights, the authors highlight the current developments in this area and present the existing and expected regulatory reforms of blockchain solutions and smart contracts within the European Union.
The purpose of this exploratory research is to investigate the adoption tendencies of the Internet of Things, Big Data, Augmented Reality and Distributed Ledger technologies applied for Bills of Lading, along with the tendencies to adopt Cyber Safe environments for fleets, governing the future of onboard technology adoption in the Greek maritime shipping industry. The final goal is to determine the overall attitude regarding technology adoption of the Greek maritime industry, and henceforward, create an initial framework for further research for those who wish to examine future information technology adoptions within the Greek maritime shipping industry, or any other industry of traditional nature.
In this work author compares smart-contract to letter of credit. Discovering technological and law aspects of smart-contract. The author underlines indivisibility of these aspects, which consolidate in unique symbiosis of digital solutions and law constructions. Moreover, technical and law nature are to be discovered in this paper, particularly, program and law mechanism of smart-contract. Comparing smart-contract to letter of credit, author concludes that smart-contract is one of types of letter of credit as a payment instrument.
Pamateni ugovori kao vrsta digitalnog i računalnog izvršavanja neke njemu specificirane programske logike mogu poslužiti u raznim primjenama gdje sudionici ne vjeruju jedan drugome i potreban im je posrednik ili decentralizirani medij kao blockchain gdje nitko neće imati kontrolu, a pametni ugovor će se svejedno moći izvršiti. Pametni ugovori imaju usku funkcionalnost ako se samo bave onim što se događa na blockchainu, ali ako ih želimo povezati sa vanjskim svijetom potreban je entitet imena Oracle, koji služi kao poveznica sa informacijama iz vanjskog svijeta i operacijama koje se jedino mogu izvršavati izvan blockchaina (npr. slanje novca preko bankarskog sustava itd.). Mi smo koristili Chainlink decentraliziranu Oracle mrežu i njihovu tehnologiju da bi povezali pametne ugovore sa vanjskim svijetom. Kreirali smo mobilnu i web aplikaciju te ih povezali sa pametnim ugovorom kreiranim na testnom Kovan Ethereum blockchainu. Funkcionalnost tog pametnog ugovora je bila a registrirani korisnici mogu prelaziti zadane rute te biti sigurni da će njihovi lokacijski podaci nastali prilikom izvršavanja rute na siguran način obraditi i biti upisani na blockchain pomoću Chainlink čvorova tj. operatora koji su uz pomoć dodatkovnog programa (eng. Data Adapter) procesirali i obradili te lokacijske podatke.
The paper bill of lading remains pervasive despite numerous problems associated with its form. Blockchain heralds change as it allows unique tokens to be possessed and traded peer-to-peer instantaneously over the internet without the need for a trusted central administrator. Blockchain furthermore promises to ease processes thanks to its applicability in smart contracting procedures. The Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR), passed by UNCITRAL in 2017, provides the relevant legal framework for legal protection of the blockchain bill of lading. This paper proposes Ethereum as a viable smart contract-enabled blockchain platform for a bill of lading system and examines said system’s compatibility with the MLETR. The analysis also shows that blockchain technology may have significant consequences for the ‘control’ approach for establishing possession of an electronic transferable record.
Lawrence Henesey, Y. Lizneva, Robert Philipp, Christopher Meyer · 5 authors
Ports are vital to the global economy, as up to 90% of goods are transferred through seaports. With increasing vessel sizes, cargo volumes and higher demand for supply-chain optimization, seaports are required to be more efficient and competitive. In the present study, a proposed solution incorporating IoT and Blockchain is considered into automating many of the activities in the load planning process, which is then evaluated via simulation. Real data is collected concerning different types of cargo for RoPax vessels with the intended goal of reducing planning time in a seaport. The results contribute as one piece of the mosaic on the avenue towards becoming a “Smart Port”, which deploys various digitalization technologies in order to become a fully automated port. The suggested approach to be integrated, builds upon IoT sensors in combination with the lightweight version of a Blockchain to improve balance indicators on a trim of a vessel. A developed simulation tool was used for evaluating a number of scenarios, with each scenario run set to 2500 times. The simulation results indicate an improvement of 50-160% from the current load planning operations for RoPax vessels.
The access to common-pool resources, i.e. to resources in limited common property, are legally distributed in a far more diverse way than limited private property resources. In transportation, a critical case for common-pool resources appear in Green Transport Corridors (GTC), that has been coined by European Union as being «sustainable logistics solutions for cargo transportation’ with a shared pool of resources aiming for multimodal trans-shipment routes with a concentration of freight traffic between significant hubs». Although there are already existing implementations of GTC concepts, there are still a lot of open questions concerning GTC governance and ownership models hindering easy marketing of the GTC approach. This paper discusses how and to which extent smart contracts in combination with blockchain technology as innovative solutions are able to facilitate GTC governance and how smart contracts can be applied to provide legal certainty by managing and allocating distributed access to common-pool resources. Smart contracts can be considered as computerised transaction protocols for the execution of underlying legal contracts, and they do not only target reducing transaction costs by realising trackable and irreversible transactions through blockchain technology for distributed databases, but also show high potential to strengthen cooperative business structures and to facilitate the entrepreneurial collaboration of cross-organisational business processes. From a legal perspective, it is controversial whether the use of smart contracts to distribute access to resources in terms of both general common-pool resources. GTCs implies an added value automatically for legal certainty and fair balance among different forms and degrees of access granted to different members of the cooperative. In cases of incorrect performance, change of circumstances or unduly induced contracts smart contracts fall considerably short on the protection of weaker parties, which the paper illustrates at the example of GTCs to be a decisive detriment of the cooperative members. The paper analyses these potentials and risks of smart contracts for the case of GTCs and showcases from both business and legal perspective in terms of their potential as viable means of distributing access to common-pool resources comprising infrastructure. Keywords common-pool resources, cooperative governance, blockchain, smart contracts, Green Transport Corridors.
Abstract Smart contracts are scripts on the top of the blockchain technology. They represent a form of automation by what the layers of intermediaries can be reduced or even completely replaced. Accordingly, blockchain smart contracting systems decrease transaction and enforcement costs as well as process time. Moreover, we argue, blockchain and smart contracts can facilitate cross-organisational collaboration and their underlying business processes. Hence, they are able to support the integration of entrepreneurs and SMEs into trans-national supply chains by reducing high entry barriers and weakening the dominating position of big players. This paper discusses the research questions how blockchain smart contracting can facilitate the implementation of collaborative logistics structures and how the integration of SMEs into sustainable maritime supply chains can be safeguarded. The research bases on expert interviews and case studies. The results showcase the potentials of using blockchain smart contracting in the environment of trans-national and multimodal supply chains.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin may turn upside down not only the system of currencies but that of the international trade.One of the most intriguing questions is how a currency, like Bitcoin, intended to be used globally, can be inserted in the soundly elaborated system of the Vienna Convention on International Sales of Goods (CISG).The paper focuses on the following topics: the nature of Bitcoin, exchange rate fluctuation and hardship, and the determination of late payment interest.
The bill of lading has, for centuries, been an integral component in the maritime shipping industry. However, the stagnation in the development of this legal instrument is contrasted with the exponential rate of development in other areas of commercial practice, which highlights the financial costs and delays associated with the use of bills of lading. The purpose of this paper is to present a modern alternative to the current paper-based bill of lading system that accounts for the practical and legal requirements of the incumbent instrument and also overcomes the deficiencies inherent in paper-based bills of lading. In the context of the regulatory uncertainty of bills of lading based on distributed ledger technology, this paper discusses approaches to regulating this new technology so as to achieve the same legal effects that the traditional, paper-based bill of lading provides. This paper presents two methods for regulating distributed ledger technology when applied to maritime shipping: the first is based on the principle of functional equivalence, which can be employed in domestic legislation, and the second is based on the Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records. I conclude that, while both approaches represent steps in the right direction, the latter would imbue this technology with sufficient legal certainty so as to spark a marine cargo carriage revolution and facilitate a productive disruption of the current industry practice.
Autonomous ships are in experimental stage nowadays with Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) already defined by IMO. Since MASS rely heavily on communications, security of communication systems and data security is critical. Secure communication is required to avoid bad actors to interfere with the communications or seizing control of a autonomous ship. In this paper, implementation of blockchain technology to improve autonomous vessels control security is investigated. This technology is already used in maritime bill of lading, acts on ship's technical inspection and for more accurate container tracking etc. The paper is organized as follows: first section describes current status on autonomous ships, basic definitions and terms, second section describes what is blockchain technology and how does it work, third section deals with blockchain technology applications with the proposed usage of the technology in autonomous vessels control scheme.
Marine transportation is the oldest means of transportation, which is the most useful when the goods to be shipped are in bulk. Travelling through sea means there is high chance of mishappening even when safety regulations are in place, which could result in damage or loss of the ship or the shipments. Thus, Marine insurance is advisable as it covers the hull, cargo, freight and marine liabilities. Any losses or damages sustained during a marine journey must be settled as early as possible through Insurance. The process of declaring and claiming Insurance involves a lot of documentation, which is collected and stored in paper format, and third-party participation. In modern times, there has been a shift towards Digitization in every sector, which means everything is stored in a digital format. One of the key developments in Digitization has been the use of Blockchain technologies which support distributed ledgers, smart contracts, smart properties, storage, etc. Applications, in which there is involvement of money or assets, are reliant on blockchain because of the security, by encryption of data, and performance provided by it. In this paper, we have discussed the challenges and key issues associated with the declaration and claiming of Marine Hull Insurance through the existing system. To resolve these issues, we combine three of the latest technologies in Blockchain, namingly, Private Blockchain, Filecoin Protocol and Smart Contracts. Our proposed system is based on a digital platform, where all documents can be commonly accessed and third-party involvements are removed, resulting in simpler, faster and easier declaration and claiming of marine hull insurances that removes the complications in the present general procedure.
Global maritime logistics generates annual revenues upwards of two trillion dollars, more than one-fifth of which is earned by freight forwarders and other intermediaries facilitating the trade. Multiple entities in the supply chain, with their disjointed and often incompatible administrative procedures, outdated paperwork practices, and competing interests, add a great deal to the cost and time for exporters and importers. This study examines the feasibility of a blockchain-based approach to enhancing transparency, efficiency, and economy of the global maritime logistics and finds the approach much promising. A proof-of-concept Web client application, built using Linux Foundation's Hyperledger Sawtooth framework, is used to describe the functionality of a potential maritime logistics blockchain.
Blockchain technology has provided a platform for the decentralized execution of smart contracts. A smart contract is an agreement that is automatically executed when certain conditions have been met. The immutability, decentral nature, and consensus mechanisms that are characteristic to blockchain technology make the smart contract and its development cycle a new field of study in software engineering. A novel economic and defensive thinking is needed to develop workable, secure smart contracts. Motivated by the need for a novel approach to development, this thesis proposes a model-driven approach to smart contract development.\nModel-Driven Engineering (MDE) is an approach to information system development in which models and model technologies are applied to raise the level of abstraction at which developers create and evolve software, with the goal of both simplifying and formalizing the various activities and tasks that comprise the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) is a framework for this approach. This thesis aims to apply this framework to create a method which describes the development phase from domain knowledge to smart contract foundation.\nThe creation of a method has two main aims, namely (i) to bridge the semantic gap between domain knowledge and smart contract by lowering the threshold for domain experts, and (ii) support developers in creating less vulnerable smart contracts that accurately represent the problem domain. This is done by constructing a model-driven method based on existing research that applies MDE to smart contract development. A literature study into this field yields the requirements and techniques for the method, which is consequently constructed based on these requirements and techniques.\nThe method is evaluated in twofold. First, the value is assessed through a case study, which shows that the developer benefits from a structured approach and the reduction of manual programming. Second, by an experiment which shows that people are better able to comprehend and communicate about models containing functional aspects of the smart contract if a computational independent model is included. By doing so it fulfills the aim of lowering the threshold for domain experts to participate in the smart contract development cycle.
In this article, the author considers the implications of the blockchain technology for trade finance, in particular the letter of credit transaction and the escrow arrangement.
The blockchain technology was invented to create the Bitcoin cryptocurrency around 2009. Since then, various types of blockchains have been developed. In common to all of them, the technology generates, via a chain of blocks, append-only ledgers, which are distributed on an online network and maintains them in sync with each other without the involvement of any trusted intermediary.
This article consists of five sections. The first section, “Two Aspects of the Blockchain Technology,” will highlight two particular aspects of the blockchain technology that are relevant to the subsequent analysis. The second section, “Blockchain for the Letter of Credit Transaction,” will then examine the implementation of the technology for trade finance, looking in particular at letter of credit transactions and, in the third section, “Blockchain for the Escrow Arrangement,” escrow arrangements. This analysis will explore the question of whether the blockchain technology with its ancillary functionality brings about any advantages over the current practice. Before concluding in the fifth section, “Recapitulation,” this article will consider in the fourth section, “The Potential of the Multisig-Fortified Escrow Service for Making an Inroad into the Market of the Letter of Credit,” whether an escrow service fortified with the blockchain technology has the potential of making an inroad into the market of the letter of credit and other methods of payment.
On May 26, 2010, Canada’s Minister of Finance tabled in the House of Commons a draft Securities Act. The purpose of the Act is to establish Federal government jurisdiction over securities legislation and create a Federal Securities Regulatory Authority. With this initiative, the Federal government proposes to centralize the regulatory apparatus to ensure uniformity of policies and regulations across Canada and meet international standards of quality and comprehensiveness. But this initiative also raises significant constitutional and economic policy issues. In a comprehensive paper examining the main arguments supporting a centralized securities apparatus, Pierre Lortie, Senior Business Advisor at Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, argues that sound public policy should move ahead only if there is a strong body of empirical evidence demonstrating that the performance of the current regime is significantly inferior to that of other countries — particularly the United States — and that a centralization of the regulatory apparatus is necessary to correct the situation. The paper demonstrates that Canada’s decentralized securities regulatory regime has in fact shown flexibility, a great capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and an unrelenting ability to respond to particular industry or regional needs. It has also provided strong assurances against the hasty adoption of disruptive and costly regulations because it is less susceptible to the imposition of politically expedient or faddish requirements or the influence of a dominant industry or interest groups. In contrast, a centralized system runs the risk of turning into a disruptive, costly and regrettable initiative that will not give Canadians what they expect, while erasing many of the benefits achieved so far.