{"id":5860,"date":"2023-12-15T15:03:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T15:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mersanlaw.com\/prestamos-intercompany-copy\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T13:25:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T17:25:49","slug":"weapons-germs-electronic-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mersanlaw.com\/en\/blog\/armas-germenes-documentos-electronicos\/","title":{"rendered":"Weapons, Germs, and Electronic Documents"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Written by Tom\u00e1s Mers\u00e1n Riera, Partner.<\/h3>

\u2709\ufe0f tomasmersan@mersanlaw.com<\/p><\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Weapons, Germs, and Electronic Documents<\/h1>\n\n\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u201cGuns, Germs, and Steel\u201d is the title of a book published in 1997<\/a> by Jared Diamond, an American writer, geographer, and biologist.\u00a0<\/p>\n


This work, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize, had an ambitious goal: to uncover\u2014among other historical milestones\u2014 The Evolutionary Origins of Humanity<\/strong>, which eventually led to the global conquest by European and Asian civilizations over other parts of the world, such as the Americas and Africa.\u00a0

Diamond, in a spectacular overview of 13,000 years of human history, identifies the factors that were\u2014in his view\u2014fundamental to the progress of various regions in Europe and Asia relative to the rest of the world, and that shaped the current development of different human civilizations.\u00a0

Among the key factors, the author refers to the title of the study: Technology, disease, and biogeographic factors were key in laying the foundation for world powers<\/strong>.\u00a0

These same foundations would later serve as the basis for the Industrial Revolution and\u2014consequently\u2014the enormous gap between the developed and developing worlds.\u00a0

The researcher, of course, faced criticism from other scientists and theorists who attempted to explain the outcome by citing other causes.\u00a0

That said, regardless of whether Diamond was correct in his research and conclusions, the fact remains that there is a decisive factor\u2014especially today\u2014that cannot be overlooked in the progress of the modern world and developed economies:<\/p>\n

A revolutionary technology<\/h2>\n

Today, modern technology is virtually synonymous with one word: the Internet.

The development of what we now know as the \u201cInternet,\u201d around 1969, was the result of a U.S. Department of Defense project known as ARPANET, which was designed to facilitate communication for military purposes.\u00a0

This network marked a turning point in the way information is transmitted. It allowed us to share, via a computer, any type of information with anyone anywhere in the world, and laid the groundwork for revolutionary technologies such as servers, websites, email, search engines, and more\u2014all of which are widely used across all industries, including, of course, the legal industry.

In this scenario, the questions that arise for the legal field are as follows:\u00a0

How can we use this technology to make the profession more agile?\u00a0

If we can send messages via \u201cemail,\u201d what is stopping us from sending legal documents electronically as well? Essentially, legal documents are nothing more than information contained in a form recognized by law, in the proper form and with the legal effects provided for by law.\u00a0

A simplistic analysis reveals that the obstacles to the legal validity of \u201celectronic documents\u201d are\u2014essentially\u2014 consent (signature) and convenience<\/strong> which can be used to adulterate them<\/strong>. This, of course, undermines the \u201clegality\u201d of such instruments and, therefore, their legitimacy and effectiveness with regard to the legal effects provided for by law.

Let's consider, for example, a promissory note (a negotiable instrument) that can be duplicated, triplicated, and replicated an infinite number of times at very low cost (by digitally printing it on a computer).\u00a0

This situation would lead to a host of legal problems. But above all, it would lead to legal uncertainty\u2014exactly what a legal framework is meant to avoid.\u00a0

If the issue with electronic documents\u2014in terms of avoiding legal uncertainty\u2014is proving consent and preventing tampering, then\u2026 how can we ensure that an electronic document can be signed and cannot be tampered with?\u00a0

After many years\u2014and, unsurprisingly\u2014the solution to this technological problem came in the form of even more technology.\u00a0

On the one hand, the issue of consent (signature) was resolved through technology and the \u201ccertification authority\u201d model, which provides a security mechanism to verify the identity of the person signing the electronic document through a certification service provider.

On the other hand, the issue of preventing document tampering was addressed by the same underlying technology used in cryptocurrency transactions: blockchain. This platform, consisting of interconnected \u201cblocks\u201d of information, prevents the information in an electronic document from being altered without leaving a record (or evidence) of such tampering.

The good news\u2014and the latest development\u2014is that Since 2021, our legal system has regulated (along with other legal aspects of electronic information) the legality of these technological elements<\/strong>, to make them a reality and to be able to put them into practice in our daily lives.

The Ministry of Industry and Commerce (the regulatory body) has recently issued a resolution to clarify the conditions under which \u201celectronic transferable documents\u201d can be issued and transferred in the market.

Given these circumstances\u2026 could anyone doubt the potential of documents such as promissory notes, CDAs, bonds, and stocks\u2014among others\u2014that can be issued and transferred electronically under conditions of legal certainty?.\u00a0

Without a doubt, this documentary and technological innovation has the potential to revolutionize our country\u2019s market and economy\u2014just as agriculture did some 12,000 years ago, the Industrial Revolution did in the 19th century, and the introduction of the Internet did a few decades ago.

Welcome to the revolution in electronic documents (Transmittable and Traceable).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Escrito por Tom\u00e1s Mers\u00e1n Riera, Socio. \u2709\ufe0f tomasmersan@mersanlaw.com Armas, g\u00e9rmenes y documentos electr\u00f3nicos \u201cArmas, g\u00e9rmenes y acero\u201d es el t\u00edtulo de un libro publicado en el a\u00f1o 1997 por Jared Diamond, escritor, ge\u00f3grafo y bi\u00f3logo estadounidense.\u00a0 Esta obra, con la que obtuvo el premio Pulitzer, tuvo un ambicioso objetivo: descubrir \u2014entre otros hitos hist\u00f3ricos\u2014 las…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mersanlaw.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mersanlaw.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mersanlaw.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mersanlaw.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mersanlaw.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mersanlaw.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mersanlaw.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mersanlaw.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mersanlaw.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mersanlaw.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}