From Lex Mercatoria to the AI Economy: Human Leadership, NEO Chambers and Fair Global Trade
Tuesday 6 October — Art of Intelligence · Chambers
The table
The case
Subtitle: An illustrative business scenario for discussion at CDayZ 2026. The Zadar Declaration is presented as a proposed framework. Source: The owner's own case (Dražen Kapusta, 2026-09-13), verbatim — Art of Governance
The buyer wanted the goods. The supplier wanted a customer who would return.
Neither had entered the relationship looking for a dispute.
A small manufacturer had accepted an order from a foreign buyer. Their AI agents had helped compare offers, exchange specifications and arrange delivery. The buyer's agent worked within an approved budget. The supplier's agent confirmed availability and proposed a shipping date. People on both sides approved the commercial relationship.
Then the buyer changed a requirement.
Its agent sent an updated specification. The supplier's agent acknowledged the message. Production continued. The goods arrived on time.
But they were made to the original specification.
The buyer believed the change had been accepted. The supplier believed its agent had acknowledged receipt of a message, without accepting a change to the contract. Payment was suspended. The supplier had wages to pay. The buyer had customers waiting.
Both could produce a convincing account of what had happened.
The question was what they should do next.
The merchant's responsibility
A merchant understands that a transaction continues beyond the exchange of goods and money. Someone must use what was delivered. Someone must stand behind what was promised. There may be another order, another introduction, another difficult season in which the relationship matters.
The commercial ethics associated with Benedetto Cotrugli place the merchant within this wider world of conduct, knowledge and responsibility. Keeping reliable records and keeping one's word belong to the same business life.
The buyer and supplier now faced that responsibility.
They could demand victory, threaten each other and let the relationship collapse. Or they could establish what had happened, recognise their respective responsibilities and search for a workable settlement.
Good intentions would help. So would evidence.
They needed to distinguish the original agreement from the requested change, receipt from acceptance, and an agent's technical capability from its authority to commit the firm.
Why Zadar
Cross-border trade has long required cooperation among people who do not share the same institutions, customs or sources of authority.
The traditions commonly discussed under Lex Mercatoria offer a historical starting point for examining how commercial practices, records and mechanisms for resolving disagreements support exchange. Zadar's own history of maritime commerce, municipal institutions and learning gives this discussion a meaningful setting.
The contemporary question is immediate: how do people cooperate when their transactions travel farther and move faster than their ability to supervise every step?
AI agents intensify that question.
An agent may negotiate with many counterparties at once. It may pass work to another system, interpret an instruction or respond to a change before its human principal has read the message.
The business still belongs to people. So do the consequences.
What did we authorise?
Before blaming the agent, the buyer's leader must answer a personal question:
What exactly did I authorise it to do?
Could it request a change, or conclude one? Could it accept a higher price? Did it need human approval when a change affected production?
The supplier's leader faces the same questions. Was the agent permitted to acknowledge messages only, or also to accept revised commitments? Had that distinction been made clear to the other party?
A mandate is a leadership decision. Someone must define its purpose, limits and conditions for escalation. Someone must be able to revoke it.
Delegation makes those responsibilities more explicit.
The role of a NEO Chamber
The proposed NEO Chamber framework gives the parties a shared procedure for examining the disagreement.
It brings together the identities of the participants, the mandates under which their agents acted, the versions of the agreement and the available evidence of subsequent actions.
In this case, that means asking:
- Who issued the revised specification?
- Which mandate applied when each agent acted?
- What did the supplier's acknowledgement actually say?
- Was a revised agreement accepted by an authorised participant?
- When did production begin, and when could either party have intervened?
- What options remain for delivery, adaptation, payment and repair?
NEO infrastructure supports the preservation and reconstruction of relevant records. AI can help organise the material, identify missing information and prepare settlement options.
A verifiable record establishes something about the record and its history. The truth of an underlying claim, the quality of a physical delivery and the fairness of a proposed settlement still require appropriate evidence and judgement.
The Chamber helps people reach that judgement with a clearer account of events.
The power of arguments
Suppose the buyer is a large company and the supplier is a small manufacturer.
The buyer can afford a long dispute. The supplier may not survive one. Both formally have a voice, but the cost of using it is very different.
Fair procedure must work under that imbalance.
Each party should be able to inspect the relevant evidence, challenge an interpretation and understand the basis of a proposed outcome. Private commercial information should be disclosed only as needed.
The proposed Zadar Declaration expresses a principle at the centre of this case: a participant should not be able to create the record, control its interpretation and unilaterally decide the dispute.
That principle also applies to the Chamber itself.
Who appoints its mediators? How are conflicts of interest handled? How can a participant challenge its conduct or seek review? What makes its procedures accessible to a small firm?
A Chamber earns trust through the way it answers those questions.
Repairing the relationship
Once the sequence is reconstructed, the parties may discover that neither had clearly defined how contract changes were to be accepted.
That finding does not automatically determine how to divide the cost. It does give them a better starting point.
Could part of the delivery be used immediately? Could the rest be modified? Could an agreed partial payment protect the supplier's ability to complete the work? What should each party change before another order?
A human mediator can help them examine those options. Where mediation fails, the participants need a clear route to accountable adjudication.
The practical aim is to resolve the disagreement fairly and preserve a valuable relationship where that remains possible.
The experience should also improve the next mandate, the next agreement and the next decision.
Human leadership for People, Planet and Prosperity
The proposed Zadar Declaration places this work within a wider purpose: AI for People, Planet and Prosperity.
In this transaction, those words have practical consequences.
People include the employees whose wages depend on payment and the customers depending on delivery. Planet enters the decision when usable goods might be discarded, remade or transported again. Prosperity includes whether both businesses can continue to create value and participate in trade.
These interests will not always align. Leaders must make the trade-offs visible and take responsibility for their choices.
COTRUGLI's educational role begins with preparing people for that responsibility: to define a mandate, question a confident account, examine evidence, recognise another party's position and make a decision they can explain.
The buyer and supplier began with a shared opportunity. Their next decision will determine whether a misunderstanding becomes a broken relationship or a lesson that makes future cooperation stronger.
What would you do if you were the person responsible?
Discussion Questions
- Before allowing an AI agent to act for you, which decisions would you authorise, which would you reserve for yourself, and when would you require it to stop and ask?
- In the buyer–supplier disagreement, what would you need to establish before deciding what is fair? What would you propose to preserve the relationship?
- Would you accept the same procedure if you were the smaller participant? What would make you trust the Chamber, and how should its own decisions be challenged?
- What must you improve in your own leadership so that faster technology produces better commitments, clearer responsibility and more durable business relationships?
- When was the last moment a person could still have stopped this, and who was supposed to be watching?
- While the dispute is open, who is actually paying for it?
- People, Planet, Prosperity: which of the three would you sacrifice in this settlement, and would you say so out loud?
- The NEO Turn. The same two firms now run thousands of orders through agents that delegate to other agents, with mandates changing mid-order. What changes in how you authorise, watch and repair, and what must not change?
Time is the hidden party in the case: acknowledgement, production, delivery. Find the window.
Wages suspended on one side, customers waiting on the other. Follow the money to the people who did not decide.
The case demands the trade-off be visible. Test that on this one order.
Separate what the record can attest from what a person must still decide.
Moderator Note
Begin with the buyer and supplier. Ask participants to make a decision before introducing the full NEO Chamber framework.
Invite them to speak from experience: an unclear commitment, a disputed delivery, a relationship repaired or an occasion when a stronger counterparty controlled the terms of resolution.
Bring the discussion back to the individual leader. What did you authorise? What did you fail to clarify? What evidence would change your mind? What responsibility remains yours?
Use Lex Mercatoria, Cotrugli's merchant ethics and Zadar's commercial tradition as context for the contemporary problem. Introduce the proposed Zadar Declaration as a framework participants can examine and improve.
CDayZ output: A practical account of what leaders should require before delegating commercial action to AI, and what a fair Chamber must provide when cooperation breaks down.
The NEO Turn
Now imagine the same firms handling thousands of orders through AI agents. Some agents delegate work to other agents. Mandates change while orders are in progress.
Which checks can operate automatically? Which events should pause a transaction? Which disagreements can be prepared for mediation immediately, and which decisions must remain with an accountable person?
Explore how identities, revocable mandates, verifiable records and shared procedures can support this scale while keeping human recourse accessible.
Closing line
Proposed moderator closing: "The future of trade depends on the commitments we are prepared to honour — and the institutions we build to help us honour them."
Your comment on this chapter
A question for the table, a disagreement, what you would have done. The case lead reads every comment; the ones the table takes up enter the chapter as questions from the room, with your name.