Abstract
This chapter builds on the observation that a ‘smart contract’ with no accompanying text is a digital document that purports to record contractual promises in language which is both intelligible to human beings and (ultimately) executable by machines. The formalization of contracting language that this entails is equally important, or perhaps more important than, the automation of contractual performance. This invites a broader inquiry, extending beyond the blockchain context, into the nature of contracts as legal objects created by words and documents. In most cases, smart contracts will actually be ‘wrapped’ in paper (ie, a conventional written contract) and nested in a national legal system. Borrowing from the idiom of computer science, this chapter introduces the term ‘contract stack’ to highlight the complex nature of contracts as legal objects incorporating different ‘layers’, including speech acts by the parties (in both natural and formal languages), default and mandatory rules of law, and, increasingly, ‘encoded’ computable elements. Understanding the interactions within this contract stack is essential to the development of contract law doctrines appropriate to ‘smart’ contracts.
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