A United Nations Body Studies the Blockchain Technology

Like Google, Microsoft and many industry giants, United Nations has taken notice of the most-talked about technology, the blockchain technology. A few weeks ago, the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilities and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) released a whitepaper, now available for public review. The whitepaper reveals that a UN body that facilitates global trade is studying blockchain and its application of smart contracts in order to accomplish its mission. The whitepaper studies the revolutionary technology to see if it offers benefits that could impact its work or that of business and organizations.

With developing standards for trade facilitation and supply chain automation already a core part of its responsibility, UN/CEFACT focuses on the “smart contract, electronic notary and decentralised process coordination” features of blockchain. It goes on to study the technology as a possible means to further move away from traditional paper-based processes and to remove the need for trust in systems such as those used to manage supply chains.

The authors go on to outline the “clear value and use cases” for blockchain, mentioning that a number of types of data can be transmitted over blockchains including insurance, invoicing, consignment and shipping, and bills of lading. The distributed ledger run by regulators can also store permits and declarations.

However, this isn’t to say that there aren’t issues too. The paper reads:

“Blockchain technology does not solve the interoperability problem that UN/CEFACT standards have always supported. Also, different blockchains are far from equal in terms of the level of trust that participants should place in them.”

Moving forward, the authors see a potential for the organization to help clarify this potential flood of data, since there is “an opportunity for UN/CEFACT to leverage its existing semantic standards.” Although blockchain and other technologies like IoT can contribute to the increased supply chain efficiency, more work is still needed to determine their potential in facilitating trade mechanisms.

“It could be very useful to develop a conceptual model of the international supply chain that shows the role of each technology within the broader map of stakeholders, services, and standards.”
Furthermore, the paper identifies gaps that the agency is “uniquely positioned to fill.”

The authors go on to suggest that UN/CEFACT work with national delegations and experts and form working groups to develop new technical specifications around the technology.