The thesis develops and seeks to validate a conceptual model for the evaluation of the transnational effectiveness of terms regulating documentary credits. The standpoint of that evaluation is the commonly accepted median compromise of the contested needs of the parties who typically transact documentary credits. The model is formulated and validated by both a doctrinal study of the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP) 600, and its previous iterations, and a functional comparative doctrinal study between English and Jordanian laws supplemented by an empirical study of Jordanian commercial practices.
It is postulated that the functional elements of the substance of documentary credits are the embedded usages of irrevocability, conformity and autonomy, and that it is only by the optimal application of these usages that the sociological value of documentary credits can be achieved and the objective median compromise of the contested needs of the transacting parties arrived at are rationally deducted. It is contended, by adapting social systems theory, that what is termed in this thesis as embedded trade usages of transnational commercial transactions constitute socially diffuse law having a normative force to the extent of displacing even some categories of mandatory law arising under autopoietic Municipal legal orders. The socio-legal nature of the embedded usages of both conformity and autonomy is critically analysed in the conceptual model in order to evaluate the legal positions, and the legal communication, of UCP 600 terms under the English and Jordanian legal orders and Jordanian commercial practices
