Companies that do business internationally must already be aware of the issue of any contract's validity.
Most nations now prescribe SI in their legal system since it provides a logical framework for all measurements in science, industry, and commerce. Often there is debate about the value of older systems but the legal basis of most nations' international trade is now SI.
Contracts written using old units (lbs, ft etc) or even wrong units (micron, mils) may well be challenged in local or international courts since it is possible that they could render contracts unenforceable.
I know that the Australian law specifically provides for a contract to be 'null and void' if any unit other than an 'Australian legal unit of measurement' is used in a contract.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216
Geelong, Australia
61 3 5241 2008
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.metricationmatters.com
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on 2005-11-05 04.51, [EMAIL PROTECTED] at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
It would not have to "mandate" anything. It could say "measure however you like, but only SI measurements will be enforceable in any contract."
Then just sit back and watch.
Carleton
-------------- Original message --------------
At 3 11 05, 09:18 PM, Scott Hudnall wrote:
It seems that the US government has no problem issuing conversion mandates with hard deadlines, when it businesses and government stand to profit at the expense of consumers. Obviously, there is the political will to force the American public to convert their television sets. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/11/03/national/w165755S23.DTL
My comments:
(1) The government may be issuing mandates here, but they have horrendously slowed down the introduction of HDTV for two decades. Not a good model for metrication. See
http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/020805-tk.html
(2) The federal government does have regulatory control over telecommunications, dating back to the early 1900s when the air! waves were considered "scarce." Of course, modern technology has pretty much removed the scarcity, but the chance of telecommunications (wired or wireless) being deregulated are slim.
(3) You folks continue to converse as if the federal government could simply mandate metrication. It can in some areas (e.g., drugs) but has no regulatory control over much of the economy. In other words, the US Federal Government, even if it found the legislative majority to do so, could not simply mandate the whole country and economy metricate. It would be thrown out by the courts.
Jim Elwell
Jim Elwell, CAMS
Electrical Engineer
Industrial manufacturing manager
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
www.qsicorp.com
<http://www.qsicorp.com/>
