Your2ndPlace

Flitting in and out of Second Life media coverage is the Portuguese Ministry of Justice's e-Justice center - the misfortune of the timing being all the recent scandal in the financial sector of Second Life. Virtually Blind made mention of it some time ago (the comments have been very useful), as did Gwyneth Llewelyn - but I had no time to address it. Too many people wanted to chat inworld about the Ginko and WSE happenings; since this has died down I had the opportunity to do some poking around.

It's probably no coincidence that Portugal is now presiding over the European Union, something which is interesting considering Linden Lab was apparently not involved. Perhaps they don't understand the implications of Portugal's presence - but then, it is unlikely that anyone does understand the implications, including the Portugese Ministry of Justice.

In this translated post by Gustavo Felisberto, though, points to a problem that I mentioned just yesterday:

...How it is that the mediating ones go to proceed in cases with people of different countries? That rules or laws go to serve of base to this mediation? Of the countries of and-it executes it to center, the Americans (where are the servers) or all meetings?...

These are big questions, especially in the context of international laws and the implications in virtual worlds. So I did some digging, and found that the Arbitration and Mediation Rules of the e-Justice Center states, in Article 3, that the law of the seat is a Second Life adaptation of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (which you can read the original of here). This is especially interesting because a virtual world could be a distinct possibility as a 'neutral area' - though as Ashcroft Burnham comments, arbitration will probably only be legally enforceable within Portugal itself, though Portugal's presidency over the European Union might broaden the net somehow.

But in the context of Second Life Business to Second Life Business transactions - where the Second Life businesses exist only within Second Life - will this be useful? While grounding in geopolitical jurisdiction of Law may be disputed, maybe it is time for more people to start considering how to deal with such issues - and whether Linden Lab can provide the necessary meta policy infrastructure to allow for resident-run policy infrastructures.

Technorati Tags: Business SecondLife metaverse 3d law Portugal eJustice e-Justice Portuguese Ministry of Justice European Union arbitration mediation policy