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Download or read book Provisions of Electronic Signatures in International Contracts written by Mahmoud Refaat and published by . This book was released on 2019-05-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this chapter is to put the concept of the signature into a broad legal context; to set out the purposes that can be attributed to a signature and to explain the functions a signature is capable of performing. In order to appreciate what constitutes an electronic signature, it is helpful to understand the function a signature performs and how judges have responded to changes in technology over the generations. It is for this reason that this chapter sets out a brief history of how judges have responded to changes in technology and the different methods that have been used to indicate how a signature can be made manifest. The function a signature performs remains as valid in the electronic age as when the use of an impression of a seal was considered to be the best means of authentication before the advent of widespread literacy, although seals, as with all other forms of evidence, were forged.1 It should be noted that many of the cases discussed in this chapter pertain to statutes that have since been changed or overturned. However, this does not negate the difficulties that lawyers and judges experienced during the trial. Applying legal principles to new technological forms As in the majority of these instances, Judges, for example, applied the fundamental legal principles to the facts of the case. Putting technology aside because it has no bearing on the situation principles of law. The fact that judges and lawyers have had to deal with new technologies is not surprising is hardly unusual, and implying that judges are grappling with technological development is a stretch.