摘要:
随着区块链技术发展,智能合约也日益受到重视,然而其法律地位尚难界定,严重制约了其实际应用,据此智能法律合约作为一种介于法律合同与智能合约之间的过渡性技术被提出。本文从智能合约等基本概念入手,通过对智能合约法律化问题进行探讨,指出智能合约法律化地位需满足文法要求、非赋权原则、审查准则等三个基本规则,并以智能法律合约语言为实例剖析了其法律效力;进而,结合几种常见智能合约系统架构,论证了区块链智能合约及其链码属于书面形式数据电文,但本身不构成合同;并指出为使其与原合同文本具有同等法律效力需满足的三方面条件:采用智能法律合约生成与订立、遵守智能合约法律化三个基本规则、约定具有同等效力。上述结果表明智能法律合约是一条保障智能合约法律地位的可行途径,也有利于从现行法上把握智能合约在合约逻辑、仲裁流程、形式化验证等方面的未来研究方向。
Abstract:
Smart contracts have attracted increasing attention with the continuous development of Blockchain. However, the uncertain status in law severely limits their practical applications. So, Smart Legal Contract (SLC) is proposed as a bridge between legal contracts and smart contracts. Starting with basic concept of smart contract, in this paper we discuss SLC’s legalization and point out that the legalization should meet three elementary principles, including the specified grammatical requirements, the principle of non-empowerment, and the examination criteria, and then analyzes SLC’s legal effect by taking smart legal contract language as an example. Moreover, analyzing in several smart contract architectures, we demonstrate that either smart contract program or the corresponding Chaincode is a kind of data messages in written form, but it is not a legal contract itself. Further, in order to ensure that the above program or Chaincode has the same legal effect as the original contract, three conditions, adopting the generation and conclusion of SLCs, complying with three elementary principles mentioned above, and agreeing on declaration with the same legal effect, need to be met. Our research shows that the SLC is a feasible way to guarantee the legal status of smart contract, and it is also conducive to grasp the future research directions in several fields, e.g., contract logic, arbitration process, and formal verification, from the perspective of existing legislation.