> And the participants to such a contract have agreed that the execution of that software is the entirety of their transaction.
How would such an agreement be communicated or enforced? The same thing happens with paper contracts: when you sign on the dotted line, it's understood that the contract encompasses the entirety of your transaction. However, there always remains the possibility of appealing to the judicial system later to argue that the contract is void/unenforceable.
You're saying no amount of evidence could show someone intended to abide in a way other than how the smart contract says they must abide, because their intention is part and parcel of what the smart contract says. True.
Your partner in this conversation is saying: You might have agreed to something illegal. It's not that the smart contract drifted from the contract's intention, it's that you weren't allowed to agree to that contract in the first place. And they're right: in such a case, the courts won't give an F what conclusions the smart contract comes to. Also true.
This is where the law could disagree with you. If you and I agree that you are my slave, that agreement is null and void. Similarly, the law does not automatically recognise the supremacy of smart contracts just because the parties thereto said so. If a dispute arose, damages could certainly be ordered by a court of law.
No, they are software. And the participants to such a contract have agreed that the execution of that software is the entirety of their transaction. If one of the parties changes their mind after the fact they will have to convince a judge first that even though they initially agreed that the execution of the contract was the entirety of the agreement that now this is no longer the case and that what they said was un-ambiguous before is now ambiguous and needs overriding.
So now you have a fairly complex situation:
- you will have to convince the judge that you entered into that contract and now wish to back out of the defining clause on something that is not classed as 'regret' (which is never a reason to annul a contract)
- you will have to find a way to communicate the judge what relief you feel will compensate you at a level that the judge will be able to enforce (this could be very difficult)
- and on top of that you will have all the usual issues you have to deal with in a lawsuit possibly complicated by your counterparty being anonymous and/or in an entirely different jurisdiction
States don't really matter here, smart contracts are software and are global, that changes their nature in a material way which will make it hard (possibly impossible) for a judge to enforce them one way or the other.