The phenomenon of contract cheating presents, potentially, a serious threat to the quality and standards of Higher Education around the world. There have been suggestions, cited below, to tackle the problem using legal means, but we find that current laws are not fit for this purpose. In this article we present a proposal for a specific new law to target contract cheating, which could be enacted in most jurisdictions.We test our proposed new law against a number of issues that would need to be considered before any legal approach could be successful; would changing the legal status of contract cheating make it less likely to happen? Could this be achieved in a specific way? If so, who should actually be prosecuted and what offence are they committing? Would it actually address the causes of contract cheating? We suggest some answers to these questions, but then also identify a number of unintended potential consequences. We therefore additionally consider whether a legal approach is possible or even desirable.We conclude that a legal approach to contract cheating is possible, and, on balance, appropriate. Using UK law as an example, we offer a specific suggestion to lawmakers, around the world, for how this might be achieved, and conclude that the most successful approach would be to focus largely on a law targeting the providers of contract cheating, in particular commercial services.

中文翻译：

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解决合同欺诈的法律方法？

合同作弊现象可能对全球高等教育的质量和标准构成严重威胁。下面引用了一些建议，可以通过法律手段解决该问题，但是我们发现当前的法律不适合此目的。在本文中，我们提出了针对特定合同欺诈行为的新法律的建议，该法律可以在大多数司法管辖区中颁布。改变合同作弊的法律地位会使其发生的可能性降低吗？是否可以通过特定方式实现？如果是这样，实际应该起诉谁，他们将犯下什么罪行？它会真正解决合同欺诈的原因吗？我们为这些问题提出了一些答案，但同时也确定了一些意想不到的潜在后果。因此，我们还考虑了采取法律手段是否可行甚至是可取的做法。我们得出结论，采取法律手段进行合同欺诈是可能的，并且总的来说是适当的。以英国法律为例，我们为全世界的立法者提供具体建议，说明如何实现这一目标，并得出结论，最成功的方法将主要集中在针对合同欺诈提供者的法律上，特别是商业服务。因此，我们还考虑了采取法律手段是否可行甚至是可取的做法。我们得出结论，采取法律手段进行合同欺诈是可能的，并且总的来说是适当的。以英国法律为例，我们向世界各地的立法者提供了具体建议，说明如何实现这一目标，并得出结论，最成功的方法将主要集中在针对合同欺诈提供者的法律上，尤其是商业服务。因此，我们还考虑了采取法律手段是否可行甚至是可取的做法。我们得出结论，采取法律手段进行合同欺诈是可能的，并且总的来说是适当的。以英国法律为例，我们为全世界的立法者提供具体建议，说明如何实现这一目标，并得出结论，最成功的方法将主要集中在针对合同欺诈提供者的法律上，特别是商业服务。