The Cape Town Convention's International Registry: decoding the secrets of success in global electronic commerce

Abstract

The International Registry, established pursuant to the Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment, is a new global electronic commerce system for recording and establishing the relative priority of interests in aircraft equipment. Other examples of global electronic commerce systems include the airline computer reservation system, the SWIFT financial network, and payment card networks. The International Registry may be the most successful global electronic commerce system ever built in terms of the speed with which it was implemented, its adoption rate, and the dearth of controversy surrounding its operation. The real ‘driver’ of its success is demand for a more efficient aircraft financing regime, while its design is an ‘enabler’ of the realization of that goal. This paper also will identify some other factors that have contributed to its remarkable success, and will note how the relative absence of such factors may have limited the success of other global electronic commerce sy...