The emergence of the internet and cyberspace have brought new opportunities for the global community. By internet communications, people had been able to save its precious time significantly by fulfilling their necessary and urgent needs without at least commuting. The internet broke down the territorial barriers allowing an instant and the free movement and exchange of information, goods and services. It would not be an exaggeration to assert that the cyberspace to some extent mitigates pressure on scarce energy and natural resources. It is obvious that the benefits of internet and cyberspace are infinite, but it is apparent that the effects of the modern information age will give rise to various legal challenges for regulators and market participants. From the theoretical perspective, Andrew Murray identified legal challenges of information society which are translated into three effects of the move from the physical space to cyberspace: ‘Firstly, information will play a significant role rather than tangibles or properties; secondly, revolutionary and inventive models are emerged and introduced; finally, the transition from ‘‘rivalrousness to non-rivalrousness’.

This paper will identify and examine contentious issues of governance of law and regulation in cyberspace as an enabling environment for e-commerce and discuss the problems for enforcement and compliance of law in cyberspace. The first part of the paper will explore the rise of cyberspace as the self-governing environment; then it will discuss inevitable development in cyberspace regulation and its prospects. The final part will examine problems of enforcement and compliance of law in cyberspace. It concludes that the governance of law and regulation will still maintain its dominance and validity in cyberspace by the variety of models of traditional and innovative technological approaches to regulation.

cyberspace, e-commerce, legitimacy, authority, internet, lawmaking, compliance