Speech by the Master of the Rolls: The International Jurisdiction Taskforce

Master of the RollsSir Geoffrey VosMaster of the RollsSir Geoffrey VosInternationalNewsSpeeches

Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls, gave a speech on 6 November 2025 to mark the 45th Anniversary of the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London.

You can read the speech, entitled The International Jurisdiction Taskforce, below.

Introduction

  1. I am honoured to have been asked to deliver this keynote speech on the subject of the International Jurisdiction Taskforce (the IJT). I would like to thank specifically Professor Rosa Lastra for inviting me, and Professor Ioannis Kokkoris for that kind introduction.
  2. Before I deal specifically with the IJT and what it hopes to achieve, I would like to put it in its proper context.

Background to the creation of the IJT

  1. Some 7 years ago in 2018, I identified that there was market uncertainty about the legal status of digital assets. Borderless blockchain technologies, Bitcoin and a large array of other cryptoassets had already taken the world by storm, but, as I saw things back then, there was an absence of consensus as to the legal foundation on which these new technologies and new asset classes were being built.
  2. In the context of the Lawtech Delivery Panel (which was also founded at about the same time) (now Lawtech UK), I was advocating for the idea that the legal community should be doing all it could to remove the legal impediments to the adoption of these new technologies by the mainstream commercial sector. I remember giving a lecture to that effect at the University of Liverpool on 2 May 2019. It was that idea that gave rise to the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce as part of the Lawtech Delivery Panel.
  3. The problem as I diagnosed it then in 2019 was that it was not obvious that English law would properly regard cryptoassets as a species of property, so that urgent action was needed. My conclusion read as follows:
    … there needs to be an identification of whether cryptoassets are, or are not, property under English law. If they are not, a quick and simple legislative approach needs to be considered. Such an approach could, indeed should, recognise the realities of present day financial and economic markets. Having done so, it may be hoped that the flexibility and ingenuity of the common law [will] do the rest. It could surely … solve the issues that have been raised as to the difficulty of taking security over cryptoassets and entering into valid and binding smart legal contracts. …
  4. That lecture was speedily followed by the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce’s authoritative statement on The Legal Status of Cryptoassets and Smart Contracts in November 2019, expressing the view that cryptoassets were capable of being regarded, in English law, as property, and smart contracts were capable of being regarded as legally binding contracts. The UKJT’s legal statement gave market certainty during the time that was needed for the law Commission to prepare its report on Digital Assets. The Legal Statement was widely cited and endorsed in the courts of many countries.
  5. The Law Commission later published its final report (No. 412) on Digital Assets published on 27 June 2023, recommending legislation. That legislation in the shape and form of the Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill is now proceeding through Parliament – though not perhaps as quickly as many had hoped.
  6. The Bill is very short. It provides simply that “[a] thing (including a thing that is digital or electronic in nature) is not prevented from being the object of personal property rights merely because it is neither— (a) a thing in possession, nor (b) a thing in action.
  7. There is an irony about the UKJT’s focus on mainstream adoption of digital assets and digital trading, when crypto has become popular because of the desire for disintermediation. The whole reason why many people invest in crypto is to release themselves from the clutches of banks and brokers. And historically, the Democrats in the US have supported the widespread availability of crypto because deprived people tend to invest in far more extensively than privileged people, whilst Republicans have supported it as an exemplar for deregulation, disintermediation and free trade. Perhaps we can all agree that crypto needs a solid legal foundation so as to make clear what rights people have when they invest in them.
  8. I will return in a moment to the approach being followed by the new Republican administration, the GENIUS Act and the promotion of dollar backed stablecoins.
  9. The UKJT has also published its Digital Dispute Resolution Rules in April 2021 providing a set of standard terms governed by English law providing for expert or arbitral resolution of digital disputes. They were revolutionary in that they allowed the expert or arbitrator access to the private key, and provided dispute resolution at a pace that was commensurate with the speed at which digital transactions themselves take place.
  10. In addition, the UKJT has issued further legal statements on the Issuance and Transfer of Digital Securities under English Private Law (in February 2023), and on Digital Assets and English Insolvency Law (in April 2024).
  11. Alongside all this activity relating to digital assets, there has been legislation, again recommended by the Law Commission, concerning digital trade. The Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 allows digital documents to be treated in the same way as paper documents provided they satisfy certain simple conditions. The ETDA is based on the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records.
  12. The Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 tackles the legal question of the uniqueness of an electronic trade document such as a Bill of Lading or a Bill of Exchange. It provides that electronic trade documents are to have the same effect as paper ones (section 3(2)) provided reliable electronic systems are used: (a) to identify the document so that it can be distinguished from copies, (b) to protect the document against unauthorised alteration, (c) to secure that it is not possible for more than one person to exercise control of the document at any one time, (d) to allow the person in control of the document to demonstrate that they are able to do so, and (e) to secure that a transfer of the document deprives the previous controller of control (section 2(2)).
  13. Although the UK was the first in the G7 to adopt such a law, France has now done so with its Law n°2024-537 dated 13 June 2024 – the Loi Attractivité (or the Competitiveness Law), which came into effect on 13 March 2025.
  14. Electronic documentation is important to the mainstream uptake of digital assets and digital trading. Obviously if you need a paper Bill of Lading, one is hardly likely to use digital payment methods or crypto.
  15. One final piece of domestic background to the establishment of the IJT is the Law Commission’s consultation paper in June 2025 on Digital Assets and Electronic Trade Documents in private international law.
  16. The paper makes some radical suggestions. Its most innovative proposal, though, is to introduce a free-standing information order on a basis of jurisdiction inspired by the forum necessitatis. It would available in crypto fraud cases, where proceedings in another forum were either (i) impossible or (ii) could not reasonably be brought, and the claimant could show a sufficient link with the jurisdiction, and a new merits test requiring only that a case of a “certain strength” be demonstrated.
  17. As to the jurisdiction applicable to cases concerning digital assets accessible from anywhere in the world, the Law Commission proposes that the law of no country would be appropriate to apply to resolve the issue in dispute, and the law of every country would be appropriate to apply to resolve the issue in dispute. The overall objective of the courts in these cases should be the just disposal of the proceedings with an omniterritorial element. To achieve the just disposal of proceedings, the courts should take into account a wide range of factors, including considering the legitimate expectations of the parties.
  18. With that, I turn to the IJT.

International Jurisdiction Taskforce

  1. An international version of the UKJT was proposed to consider how the most widely used private law systems can move towards the alignment necessary to remove legal impediments to the adoption of digital assets and digital international finance and digital trade. International alignment is obviously very important for digital assets, international finance and trade, because the blockchain technologies supporting digital assets are inherently borderless.
  2. The concept of the IJT was an understanding that central banks and governments everywhere are considering the issue of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and the regulation of stablecoins on which digital trade will be based. All this despite President Trump’s Executive Order of 23 January 2025 on “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology” announcing the prospective prohibition of development of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) in the US and abroad.
  3. The thought behind the IJT was that most municipal legal systems would require amendments to facilitate the transition to digital assets, securitisation and digital trade. The main private law jurisdictions were going it alone. The objective, or one objective, was to promote the concept that legal developments in the main private law jurisdictions should, if possible be compatible and aligned so as to facilitate entirely borderless technologies.
  4. The IJT was ultimately formed in July 2025. It is composed of legal experts representing the private law systems most commonly used by international financial and commercial parties. Those private law systems are for now only the UK, the USA, France, Singapore, Japan and Australia, with participation also from the EU.
  5. It was also thought that the IJT could consider the international “read across” of the 3 legal statements issued by the UKJT, alongside a consideration of what each widely used private law jurisdiction has already done and is planning in relation to facilitating the adoption of digital assets and digital trade.
  6. Interestingly, its first project has been to gain an understanding of where each of its member jurisdictions stands on the critical questions of digital assets as property, how they are regulated, and whether they can be collateralised or securitised.
  7. The essential rationale is to identify private law impediments to the adoption of new technologies, not to dictate to national or federal regulators. It is likely that the IJT will look, in future, at the application of private international law principles to borderless digital trade, no doubt considering the Law Commission’s “law of no country and all countries” approach along the way. It will look also at the legal factors affecting the rapidly accelerating use of AI in international finance and trade, and the reasons why international finance, transportation and trade is resistant to the changes needed to adopt full transactional digitisation.
  8. The IJT may consider issuing its own legal statements that point the way towards harmonisation or alignment of private laws to facilitate digital uptake.

A forward look

  1. So, where will we go from here?
  2. First, it is clear that there will be increasing digital trade based on US stablecoins following the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act (the GENIUS Act) (enacted 18 July 2025). GENIUS provides a federal regulatory framework for US stablecoins. It creates a new licensing category for “permitted payment stablecoin issuers”, and requirements for issuers to maintain 1:1 reserves of cash or US short term Treasury stocks. Certain legal protections are provided for holders in the event of insolvency. Stablecoins will not be classified as securities or commodities, and permitted payment stablecoin issuers (PPSIs) will not be classified as investment companies
  3. Stablecoin adoption has increased dramatically since the GENIUS act was passed. According to Bloomburg, the trade in stablecoins was $6bn per month in February 2025, and increased to $10bn per month in August 2025.
  4. It is very hard to predict the future in what is a very unstable commercial world, despite the US focus on stablecoins.
  5. I still believe however, as I did back in 2019, that there is a need for a sound private law foundation for cross border digital trade and the widespread mainstream adoption of digital assets.
  6. Ultimately, even if the Law Commission’s approach gains currency, I expect that mainstream investors will choose a private law to govern their relations on-chain, just as they do now off-chain.
  7. I suspect that the UKJT’s Digital Dispute Resolution Rules will need to be amended and refined, but that choices of law and jurisdiction will still be popular amongst serious investors globally. That is why the work of the UKJT, and soon, I hope, the IJT, will continue to be influential.
  8. Disintermediation, including the reduced reliance on lawyers, may be a popular idea, but ultimately people will require some form of legal security for their investments in case things go wrong. But this question links with the last aspect of the UKJT’s work that I want to mention briefly – that is its current work on liability for harms caused by AI.
  9. Unlike digital assets and digital trading, nobody is asking whether there will be mainstream adoption of AI. It is happening in every industry and every consumer process. But our legal thinking on who will be liable for harms caused by AI is less well developed.

Legal Statement on AI

  1. That is why the UKJT is engaged in preparing to publish a Legal Statement on Tortious Liability for AI Harms. The over-arching question to be addressed by the proposed Legal Statement will be whether English law is equipped to provide redress for harms caused by AI and whether (and if so where) statutory intervention may be needed. As between commercial parties, risk allocation is a matter for negotiation and agreement, and the common law provides an obviously adequate framework in the form of the law of contract. The proposed focus of the Legal Statement, therefore, is on harms caused to third parties and the adequacy of tort law to respond.
  2. There are three principal reasons why it is appropriate for UKJT to issue a Legal Statement on this topic now.
  3. First, the question of whether and how the law will respond to AI harms is a source of market uncertainty. In particular, concern as to the liability position is thought to be a factor discouraging use of, at least some, AI tools by professional services providers.
  4. Secondly, the EU has already legislated to control AI development and deployment activities through the AI Act, and was working on an AI Liability Directive until it was withdrawn due to “political disagreement” and the push for legislative simplification. But the project carried with it the implication that existing legal frameworks may be inadequate, and even the perception of a gap in English law. The American Legal Institute launched in October 2024 a project to publish “Principles of the Law, Civil Liability for Artificial Intelligence”, suggesting that a similar concern has arisen there too.
  5. Thirdly, there are currently multiple regulatory initiatives relating to AI. It would be desirable to ensure that that any regulatory activity within this jurisdiction – or indeed legislative activity – is underpinned by a solid analysis of the common law legal position.
  6. The proposed legal statement may conclude that English law (both common law and, where relevant, existing statute) is well equipped to deal with harms caused by AI, but it could and, I hope, will provide legal certainty and thus: (i) market confidence amongst potential but currently reluctant users of AI tools and services, and (ii) a clear substantive legal backdrop for the various regulatory initiatives.
  7. I hope also that the new legal statement will provide an example of English law jurisdictional leadership. It will surely be watched closely internationally as other jurisdictions grapple with the issues it raises.

Conclusions

  1. I have attempted a very quick tour d’horizon of the legal landscape surrounding the UKJT and the new IJT. I continue to believe that they have, to some extent, caught the wind in a fast-moving digital and AI environment.
  2. I much look forward to your questions.