Recommendation No. 14 Authentication of Trade Documents (UNECE and UN/CEFACT)
This Recommendation seeks to encourage the use of electronic data transfer in international trade by recommending that Governments review national and international requirements for signatures on trade documents in order to eliminate the need for paper- based documents by meeting the requirement for manual-ink signatures through authentication methods that can be electronically transmitted.
Similarly, this Recommendation encourages the trading community and trade services providers to examine business processes to identify where signatures (of any kind) may be eliminated and for those processes where this is not possible, to pursue the electronic transfer of trade data and the adoption of authentication methods other than the manual-ink signature.