Bahrain is first MENA country to ratify UN treaty on electronic communications

Bahrain has become the first country in MENA to ratify the UN Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts (2005), helping to facilitate a new wave of digital business across the region and enhance investor protections. The convention will enter into force for Bahrain on 1 January 2021.

The UN Convention aims to enhance commercial certainty by ensuring that contracts concluded and other communications exchanged electronically are as valid and enforceable as their traditional paper-based equivalents and by introducing specific principles surrounding the use of technology during signing processes. It also aims to remove legal obstacles to the use of electronic communications in enacting previous treaties that were first created before the widespread use of modern technology.

Bahrain was the 14th country worldwide to join the treaty, alongside major economies such as Singapore and Russia. Countries that have signed, but not yet ratified, the convention include China, the Republic of Korea and Saudi Arabia.