{"id":122993,"date":"2022-01-04T16:34:27","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T15:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/?page_id=122993"},"modified":"2024-03-04T15:27:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T14:27:52","slug":"blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what\/","title":{"rendered":"Blockchain-based smart contracts: the death of contract law?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Abstract<\/h2><p>Smart contracts are on vogue right now. The term \u2018smart contract\u2019 is used to refer to a software programme which is regularly built on blockchain technology as a set of promises, specified in a digital form, including protocols within which the parties perform on these promises. They are in principle <em>self-enforcing<\/em> and <em>self-executing<\/em> (upon a trigger event) and these are the two features which make them so interesting for practice, but also troublesome legally. Therefore, this course aims to do the following: (1) giving a definition of what smart contracts actually are, (2) explaining how blockchain-based smart contracts work, (3) providing some practical examples, (4) comparing traditional contracts and smart contracts, (5) and ultimately discussing some legal hot topics about smart contracts (eg. whether they are the end of contract law as we know it, etc.).<\/p><p>It has continuously been pointed out that smart contracts are neither contracts in the traditional sense nor that they are smart and that, consequently, the term \u2018smart contract\u2019 itself is a misnomer.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Speaker<\/h2><div class=\"wp-block-text-image\">\n  <div class=\"row align-bottom collapse\">\n    <div class=\"column small-12 medium-6 xlarge-5 xxlarge-expand wp-block-text-image-info js-fade-scroll\">\n      <p class=\"wp-block-text-image-title\">Andr\u00e9 Janssen<\/p>\n      <div class=\"wp-block-text-image-intro\"><p>Andr\u00e9 Janssen is a chair professor at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Andr\u00e9 Janssen is respectively was a visiting scholar\/professor at the Universities of Leuven, Oxford, Turin, Verona, and at the Chinese University for Political Science and Law in Beijing and at the City University Hong Kong. He taught and presented at international conferences on five continents, is a member of several international research networks and published more than 150 books and articles in the field of Private, European, Comparative and International Sales Law, and Artificial Intelligence and Law. He is the co-chief-editor of the European Review of Private Law (ERPL) and a member of the editorial board of the International Arbitration Law Review (IALR).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n    <\/div>\n\n    <div class=\"column small-12 medium-6 xlarge-7 xxlarge-shrink wp-block-text-image-picture js-fade-scroll\">\n      <img decoding=\"async\" width=\"457\" height=\"560\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/photo-andre-457x560.jpg\" class=\"attachment-text_image size-text_image\" alt=\"Andre Janssen speaker\" \/>    <\/div>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AbstractSmart contracts are on vogue right now. The term \u2018smart contract\u2019 is used to refer to a software programme which is regularly built on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":123037,"parent":0,"menu_order":38,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-122993","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Blockchain-based smart contracts: the death of contract law? - UCLy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blockchain-based smart contracts: the death of contract law? - UCLy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"AbstractSmart contracts are on vogue right now. The term \u2018smart contract\u2019 is used to refer to a software programme which is regularly built on [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"UCLy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-03-04T14:27:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/man-holding-technology-justice-icon-circle-3d-rendering-1920x576.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1205\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what\/\",\"name\":\"Blockchain-based smart contracts: the death of contract law? - UCLy\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/man-holding-technology-justice-icon-circle-3d-rendering-1920x576.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-01-04T15:34:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-04T14:27:52+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/man-holding-technology-justice-icon-circle-3d-rendering-1920x576.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/man-holding-technology-justice-icon-circle-3d-rendering-1920x576.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1205,\"caption\":\"View of a Man holding a Technology justice icon on a circle 3d rendering\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Accueil\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Blockchain-based smart contracts: the death of contract law?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/\",\"name\":\"UCLy\",\"description\":\"Un site utilisant WordPress\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/#organization\",\"name\":\"UCLy\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/logo-150ans-blanc.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/logo-150ans-blanc.svg\",\"caption\":\"UCLy\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Blockchain-based smart contracts: the death of contract law? - UCLy","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ucly.fr\/en\/blockchain-based-smart-contracts-the-dead-of-contract-law-or-what\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Blockchain-based smart contracts: the death of contract law? - UCLy","og_description":"AbstractSmart contracts are on vogue right now. 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