Legal instrument is a legal term of art that is used for any written legal document such as a certificate, a deed, a will, an Act of Parliament or a law passed by a competent legislative body in municipal (domestic) or international law. Many legal instruments were written under seal by affixing a wax or paper seal to the document in evidence of its legal execution and authenticity (this could often remove the need for consideration in contract law); however, today most jurisdictions have done away with the requirement of documents being under seal in order to give them legal effect. ... A certificate is an official document affirming some fact. ... A deed is a legal instrument used to grant a right. ... In the law, a will or testament is a document by which a person (the testator) regulates the rights of others over his property or family after death. ... In Westminster System parliaments, an Act of Parliament is a part of the law passed by the Parliament. ... Corruption Jurisprudence Philosophy of law Law (principle) List of legal abbreviations Legal code Intent Letter versus Spirit Natural Justice Natural law Religious law Witness intimidation Legal research Critical legal studies External links Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Law Look up law in Wiktionary, the free dictionary... A legislature is a governmental deliberative body with the power to adopt laws. ... A municipality or general-purpose district (compare with: special-purpose district) is an administrative local area generally composed of a clearly defined territory and commonly referring to a city, town, or village government. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Seal on envelope A seal is an impression printed on, embossed upon, or affixed to a document (or any other object) in order to authenticate it, in lieu of or in addition to a signature. ... See also authenticity (philosophy) and authentication (which deals only with computer security). ... (Note, Consideration under English law is dealt with separately) Consideration is a central concept in the common law of contracts. ... A contract is any legally-enforceable promise or set of promises made by one party to another and, as such, reflects the policies represented by freedom of contract. ...

Electronic legal documents

Legal instruments have undergone a progressive process of dematerialisation as it is now possible to sign digital documents, have them date and time stamped, or otherwise verified through various schemes of encryption and document authentication without benefit of actual parchment, seal, stamp, paper, or even ink. These changes have occurred in various ways in various jurisdictions and are hardly uniform. As they are recent, there is also confusion and misunderstanding at many levels, including statute, regulation, and courts. In science fiction materialization and dematerialization are the actions associated with a matter transporter system. ... In cryptography, encryption is the process of obscuring information to make it unreadable without special knowledge. ... For the R.E.M. album, see: Document (album) A document is a writing that contains information. ... In computer security, authentication (Greek: αυθεντικός, from authentes=author) is the process by which a computer, computer program, or another user attempts to confirm that the computer, computer program, or user from whom the second party has received some communication is, or is not, the claimed first party. ...

In particular, the United States Congress enacted a statute in mid 2000 specifying that no court could thereafter fail to recognize a contract simply because it was digitally signed. The law is very permissive, making essentially any electronic character in a contract sufficient. It is also quite restrictive in that some document types may not be in electronic form, no matter what the electronic character might be. No restriction is made to signatures which are adequately cryptographically tied to both the document text (see message digest) and to a particular key whose use should be restricted to certain persons (eg, the alleged sender). There is thus a gap between what the cryptographic engineering can provide and what the law assumes is both possible and meaningful. In cryptography, a cryptographic hash function is a hash function with certain additional security properties to make it suitable for use as a primitive in various information security applications, such as authentication and message integrity. ... A key is a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm. ...

Several states had already enacted laws on the subject of electronic legal documents and signatures before the U.S. Congress had acted, including Utah, Washington, and California to name only a few of the earliest. They vary considerably in intent, coverage, cryptographic understanding, and effect.

Several other nations and international bodies have also enacted statutes and regulations regarding the validity and binding nature of digital signatures. Digital signature (or public key digital signature) is a type of method for authenticating digital information analogous to ordinary physical signatures on paper, but implemented using techniques from the field of public key cryptography. ...

To date, the variety (and inadequacy) of the definitions used for digital signatures (or electronic signatures) have produced a legal and contractual minefield for those who may be considering relying on the legality and enforceability of digitally signed contracts in any of many jurisdictions. Adequate legislation adequately informed by cryptographic engineering technology remains an elusive goal. That it has been fully, or adequately, achieved (in any jurisdiction) is a claim which must be taken with considerable caution. This article is an overview of cryptographic engineering which notes at least some of the differences between ordinary engineering and the cryptographic sort. ...

External link

• FDA Draft Guidelines on Part 11 21 CFR: Electronic records; electronic signatures (pdf file)