Jurisdiction of Electronic Transaction in Thailand

Songsil Norintorongkul Na Ayudhaya*

However, another well known law professor named Jack L. Goldsmith argued that Cyberspace transactions are no different from "real-space" transnational transactions because transactions in Cyberspace involve real people in one territorial jurisdiction either (i) transacting with real people in other territorial jurisdiction or (ii) engaging in activity in Cyberspace is functionally identical to transactional activity mediated by other means such as mail or telephone or smoke signal. Nations can exercise territorial authority to achieve significant regulatory control over Cyberspace transactions. Problems of jurisdiction in Cyberspace are similar to problems raised in the other transactional context. Therefore, he believes that it is unnecessary to establish new rules or separate laws to regulate Cyberspace transactions.(7)

According to the view points of Johnson and Post and Goldsmith, we can understand that there is no clear explanation whether Cyberspace jurisdiction is similar to or different from territorial jurisdiction. Moreover, currently there are no official legislations or rules or regulations established in order to control transactions in Cyberspace in the country which faces Cyberspace jurisdiction problems, especially in Australia.

The development of technology in the area of communication such as the internet is growing very fast and is still developing, and in the future there might be new types of communication methods which become widely used instead of the internet technology. Therefore, it might be too soon to decide whether the law of Cyberspace jurisdiction should be established separately from the law of jurisdiction in the real world. The only way we can solve Cyberspace problems in the current situation is to apply all existing laws relating to this matters such as laws concerning private international transactions.

Definition of Electronic Transaction

Internationally, United Nations Commission on International Law (UNCITRAL) establishes rules and regulations concerning electronic transactions by implementing the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce. The Model Law supports all electronic transactions which are used by member states and the Model law is also used as a tool to provide the enforcement of electronic commerce law in their legislation.(8) Under the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce, there is no provision to define the meaning of electronic transactions; nevertheless, the Model Law implies the meaning of electronic transactions behind the prescription of Article 2 (a) and 11(1). Article 2 (a) provides the definitions of "Data message" to mean that

And Article 11(1) provides the provision concerning formation and validity of contracts that