The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of legislation and doctrinal viewsexpressed by jurists of different countries on the concept and legal nature of a smartcontract. The smart contract is a new institution related to the use of digital technologies,which was not previously known either in foreign countries or in Russian law. That is whythe authors have identified five different points of view on the concept and legal nature of asmart contract. A similar situation has been developed in legislations of those countries thathave included the rules on smart contracts (ex., USA, Italy, Belarus). Such a large numberof various points of view on the concept and the nature of a smart contract and on methodsof legal regulation indicate the absence of a proper legal concept of smart contracts thatwould be able to adequately combine both technical and legal features of the technical andlegal phenomenon under consideration. The aim of the study is a comparative legal analysisof the legislation and doctrines of various countries to determine the legal nature of a smartcontract and to justify proposals for improving existing legislation, which will eliminate themain disadvantages of a smart contract application in practice. The subject of the study isRussian and foreign legislations about the legal regulation of civil law relations in cyberspacein general, and on the blockchain platform, in particular, also Russian and foreign doctrinesregarding the legal problems of smart contracts applicаtion in civil circulation. Researchmethods: dialectical, formal logical, functional, and other general scientific researchmethods, and special legal methods: formal, logical and comparative. Results of theresearch: outside of legal regulation, a smart contract is a regular computer program thatcannot be of a legal nature. It remains a technical solution, an innovation in the area ofcomputer technology. A smart contract can be used for various purposes in law, includingthe usage in contractual practice. In case of using a smart contract in contractual practice,it is necessary to distinguish between a computer program and the legal relationship itself,i.e. contract. In accordance with aforesaid, the law can only regulate contractual relations,taking into account the technical features of a computer program that inevitably changesthe contractual relationship. Depending on the objectives of legal regulation, a smartcontract can be used as a way of executing a traditional contract, which can be concludedin simple written or oral form, or as a special non-independent contractual design thatcannot be concluded separately from the corresponding contract type.
For citation: Evimova L.G., Mikheeva I.V., Chub D.V. (2020) Comparative Analysis of Doctrinal Concepts of Legal Regulating Smart Contracts in Russia and Foreign States. Pravo. Zhurnal Vysshey shkoly ekonomiki, no 4, pp. 78–105 (in Russian) DOI: 10.17323/2072-8166.2020.4.78.105