United Nations Commission for International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)

Setting Rules for International Trade
and for Commercial Dispute Resolution

Background

When world trade began to expand dramatically in the 1960s, national governments realized the need for a global set of standards and rules to harmonize and modernize the worldwide assortment of national and regional regulations that until then largely governed international trade. They turned to the United Nations, which in 1966 established the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), recognizing the need for a more active United Nations role in removing legal obstacles to the flow of international trade. UNCITRAL has since become the core legal body of the United Nations system in the field of international trade law.

Much of the complex network of international legal rules and agreements that affects today's commercial arrangements has been reached through long and detailed consultations and negotiations organized by UNCITRAL. Its aim is to remove or reduce legal obstacles to the flow of international trade and progressively modernize and harmonize trade laws. It also seeks to coordinate the work of organizations active in this type of work and promote wider acceptance and use of the rules and legal texts it develops.

Membership

The Commission comprises 60 Member States elected by the General Assembly for a term of six years. Membership is structured to ensure representation of the world's various geographic regions and its principal economic and legal systems.

Secretariat

Located originally at United Nations Headquarters in New York, the UNCITRAL Secretariat was transferred to Vienna in September 1979. With a staff of 21, the Secretariat assists UNCITRAL in its work; prepares studies, reports and draft texts; conducts legal research; drafts and revises working papers and legislative texts; provides technical legislative assistance to States and prepares publications.

Working Methods

Texts designed to simplify trade transactions and reduce associated costs are adopted by the Commission that meets once a year alternating between New York and Vienna. The substantive preparatory work is carried out by working groups comprising all member States of UNCITRAL, which meet once or twice per year.

Legal Texts

UNCITRAL develops different types of texts to modernize and harmonize the law of international trade. These texts are generally legislative texts, such as conventions, model laws and legislative guides, or non-legislative texts such as contractual rules that can be incorporated into commercial contracts and legal guides.

• Convention: an agreement among States establishing obligations binding upon those States that ratify or accede to it.
• Model law: a set of model legislative provisions that States can adopt by enacting it into national law.
• Legislative guide: a text that provides guidance for the development of laws, discussing relevant policy issues and choices and recommending appropriate legislative solutions.
• Contractual rules: standard clauses or rules designed to be included in commercial contracts.
• Legal guide: a text that provides guidance for the drafting of contracts, discussing relevant issues and recommending solutions appropriate to particular circumstances.

Technical Assistance

One of UNCITRAL's priorities is the provision of technical assistance for modernization of trade laws and commercial practices. In addition to promoting understanding of UNCITRAL texts and the benefits they can bring to the expansion of international trade, UNCITRAL assists States to develop the laws required to implement these legislative texts and commercial associations to promote the use of non-legislative texts, such as dispute resolution rules.

Case Law on UNCITRAL Texts (CLOUT)

CLOUT is a collection of court decisions and arbitral awards interpreting UNCITRAL texts. CLOUT includes abstracts (i.e. reports) in the six United Nations languages on the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (Vienna, 1980) (CISG), the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (1985, MAL), The Model Law on Electronic Commerce (1996, MLEC) and The Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency (1997, MLCBI). Other texts will be added as case law becomes available. The CLOUT database can be accessed at the UNCITRAL web-site at http://www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/case_law.html.

Achievements

Since it was established, UNCITRAL has completed major international texts on sale of goods, transport, dispute resolution, procurement and infrastructure development, international payments, electronic commerce and insolvency. International arbitration, transport law, electronic commerce, insolvency law, security interests and public procurement are the focus of current work.

For information contact:

Jenny Clift
Senior Legal Officer, UNCITRAL Secretariat
Vienna International Centre
PO Box 500, 1400 Vienna, Austria
Telephone (general inquiries): (+43-1) 26060-4061
Email: jenny.clift@uncitral.org
Website: www.uncitral.org