Globalization of International Economic Relations, Information Technologies and Move to a New Level of Diffusion in Law

Abstract

Globalization of international economic relations directly depends on the level of information technologies’ development. At present the development of information law has created favourable conditions for interpenetration of the rules of foreign law. This penetration is called diffusion in law. The article investigates the aspect of interpenetration of legal ideas and decisions through contracts concluded by participants in civil law relations. In business relations’ practice, parties frequently borrow not only legal language, but also legal structures from foreign contract forms. In case of a conflict situation there arises a problem of interpretation of th elegal formula which the parties have imported from a foreign law and copied in their contractual relations. Traditional approach assumes that a court, when interpreting contractual provisions, even imported from a foreign law, follows its law, i.e. lex fori. Development of international relations demonstrates imperfection of such approach, since such approach does not allow identifying the parties’ true intentions while concluding the contract. Development of international relations, amplification of economic relations results in the fact that the parties increasingly use international structures in their practice. For example, UNIDROIT Principles, to which the parties may refer in their contracts. But other states also use the UNIDROIT Principles and include them into their most recent codification. In such a way there appears “grass-root diffusion”, i.e. through the development of private contractions relations.