For suppose, if a intentionally long hundred page T&C page has a unintentional mistake, would that enforceable as well. And why do countries even bother signing agreements? Why is signature universally accepted way of confirmation?
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A contract is a “meeting of minds”. This means that both parties understand and agree to the contract. If it turns out later that one party didn’t understand the contract, or as you mention that the contract contains a mistake, then the contract **may** be invalid. It becomes a judgement call from some enforcement body, like a civil court judge. They will consider things like “Did both parties have the opportunity to read the entire contract?” and then make their decision. When we’re talking about contracts between countries, there is **basically** no enforcement body to make the judgement call, so the authority is decided much in the same way it would be decided in an isolated room of people. In that case, the question considered is “What happens if I don’t fulfil the contract?”
A signature is generally uniquely identifiable and somewhat difficult to mimic, like a fingerprint. That’s the idea, anyway.
Laws are what makes contracts legally enforcable.
>if a intentionally long hundred page T&C page has a unintentional mistake
That first of all depends on what the mistake is. Contracts cant override laws so if the mistakes make the contract against the law it cant be enforced, this is pretty universaly true. The rest depends on where in the world you are (and where the other side is). In some jurisdictions the whole contract voids if there is something illegal in there, unless you include a severability clause in other jurisdictions severability is just assumed. Then it also depends on who signs the contracts. Lay people often arent held to the same standards as a proffesional, so in some jurisdictions for example an unreasonable clause in a T&C might not be enforcable because lay people wont understand it or because it is unreasonable to exepect a clause in T&C. For example if reddit changed their T&C tomorrow and would hide a clause somewhere that says you have pay your entire salary to them for ever no court would say that this is something you could expect in a T&C of a social media platform so it wouldnt be enforcable.
To the countries part they bother because if they breach the contract it harms their reputation and makes future contracts with any other nation more unlikely.
The signature shows you were there and that you could read the document you signed. You could also use a check mark or what ever but that is much easier to fake than a signature.
An agreement has to meet a few criteria to be considered a binding contract. Exact laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but generally you need the following:
* Agreement – usually an offer by one party and acceptance by the other
* Certainty – the terms of the contract have to be clear
* Consideration – basically, both parties have to offer something. For example, I offer you $5,000 and you offer me your car. If I offer you $5,000 and you don’t offer anything in return, it’s not a contract and you can’t force me to pay.
* Intention to create legal relations: the parties have to intend that the agreement is binding. Like if I buy you a drink and you say you’ll pay me back, that’s more of an informal gentlemen’s agreement than something we intend to be able to get a court to enforce.
There’s two types of law.
The first is the law that the state creates, and includes stuff like “no murdering” and “pay your taxes”. The state has lawmakers to make these laws, and lawyers and other players in the justice system to act on it when it’s not followed.
The second is the type that business creates, like “I agree to charge you this much for my product” and “You can use my software as long as it’s used in this way”. These are driven by contracts, which are written up by lawyers in a way that their parallel “civil” legal system should be able to clearly understand. These contracts try to use very precise language that removes any confusion when another lawyer or legal system participant reads them, and that can make them really hard for us plebes to read.
Terms and conditions fit here. There’s so many words in them because they need to be CLEAR and need to cover EXCEPTIONS, stuff like “acts of God” in insurance clauses. And they need some form of evidence that the person entering into the business arrangement accepts them.
If there’s problems later and it goes to civil court, it’s much clearer and much easier to argue that someone accepted their role in them, and therefore that someone *should* have been aware of the contract’s contents when someone has “SIGNED” it with their own signature, than if they just hand-wave it away and say “what the heck is this” after being shown it later. The signature acts as evidence that an interaction with the contract actually happened”, so the signer can’t easily lie and say stuff like “hey I never saw that in my life what are you talking about, this wasn’t even sent to me!”
Signatures aren’t perfect, they can be forged. But there are electronic ways to make it FAR more likely that they haven’t been forged. So they’ve become the standard “proof” everywhere that someone was aware there was a contract, and someone accepted that contract, even if they might not have read it.
It’s pretty simple: contract law. There is a branch of the law dedicated to contracts. In each country, they have their own set of laws that makes contracts enforceable, what makes a contract void, etc.
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