Kaushik HM, Jindal Global Law School
Introduction
In a world that is rapidly accepting its new identity in the digital age while receding away from the industrial one, it is important for institutions of law and governance to adapt themselves to face new challenges and thereby be prepared to avoid and resolve new forms of human conflict.
Traditionally, contracts have been drafted on paper, where the parties to the contract come to an agreement about the object and terms and conditions of a contract and by doing so depict their legal intention to enter into a mutually binding contract. The primary purpose of having legally binding contracts is obvious; to ensure that parties entering contracts have a legal remedy in case a dispute arises. Despite its benefits, traditional contracts can be troublesome. To begin with, most contracts that involve even the slightest amount of complexity requires lawyers as middlemen to draft fair contracts. In the corporate world, lawyers are utilized to draft contracts in such a way that there is an unobvious imbalance created towards the corporate. This lack of legal expertise of the general public means that entering into a contract is an expensive process in many instances. In addition, there is also an issue of trust that can arise between parties, where neither trusts the other to fulfil their part of the obligation and therefore end up not fulfilling their obligation. For instance, if certain goods have to be delivered for Rs. 2000, one party might demand the goods to be delivered first while the other party might demand Rs. 2000 to be paid first. Whose consideration takes precedence?
