Smart Legal Contracts and Their Implications in Digital Era

Yordanka Noneva-Zlatkova – South-West University ‘Neofit Rilski’, Faculty of Law and History, Georgi Izmirliev, 1, 2700, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria

Abstract: The law in the new digital era is faced with many challenges and unknown legal figures. Smart legal contracts are a notion that needs to be defined in the legal fields of study. They are powered by blockchain technology, automate, and enforce contract terms through code. Also, these contracts offer benefits like efficiency, accuracy, transparency, and automation across sectors such as finance, supply chain, real estate, healthcare, and intellectual property. Despite their advantages, smart contracts face challenges including technical issues, legal recognition, security risks, and ethical implications. As technology advances and legal frameworks evolve, the adoption of smart legal contracts is expected to grow, transforming traditional contract practices, and integrating with emerging technologies like AI and IoT, ultimately shaping the future of digital transactions and legal agreements. In addition, the author traces how the traditional theoretical aspects of contracts can be applied to smart legal contracts. The researcher proves that the new technologies may influence the conventional legal order, which may be explained by the fact that individuals want to live in a more efficient digital era, than those in the conventional trade economy.

10th International Scientific Conference ERAZ 2024 – Conference Proceedings: KNOWLEDGE BASED SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT,  hybrid – online, virtually and in person, Lisbon, Portugal, June 6, 2024

ERAZ Conference Proceedings published by: Association of Economists and Managers of the Balkans – Belgrade, Serbia

ERAZ conference partners: Faculty of Logistics, University of Maribor, Maribor (Slovenia); University of National and World Economy – UNWE, Sofia (Bulgaria); Center for Political Research and Documentation (KEPET), Research Laboratory of the Department of Political Science of University of Crete (Greece); Institute of Public Finance – Zagreb (Croatia); Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Ohrid, University of St. Kliment Ohridski from Bitola (North Macedonia)

ERAZ Conference 2024 Conference Proceedings: ISBN 978-86-80194-86-8, ISSN 2683-5568,

DOI: https://doi.org/10.31410/ERAZ.2024

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission. 

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