The United Nations founded in 1945 promotes world peace and economic and social development. UNCITRAL, established in 1996, aims to unify international trade law. Its members conduct research and create drafts for adoption at annual meetings. UNCITRAL also drafts model laws for member nations to incorporate into their legal systems.
The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 after the Second World War with the aim of promoting world peace and helping to facilitate the implementation of international law and economic and social development. The United Nations has a number of committees and commissions within the organization that work on specialized issues, such as the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law or UNCITRAL. Established in 1996, the goal of UNCITRAL is “to promote the progressive harmonization and unification of international trade law”.
With the rapid technological progress that followed World War II, international trade began to increase and the need for an international body to help both promote and regulate it became apparent. As of 2002, UNCITRAL’s membership included representatives from 60 nations. Because nations around the world have different levels of advancement, as well as different legal systems and traditions, membership is understood as a representative collection of nations. Representatives are elected to serve six-year terms, with terms staggered so that about half of the membership expires every three years.
UNCITRAL members spend much of their time conducting research on international trade relations and analyzing research to look for ways to streamline and unify international trade. Committees within create drafts that are submitted to the entire membership at its annual meetings for adoption. If the whole member of UNCITRAL adopts a text in one of its annual conventions, the member states must ratify the agreement. If a state signs the agreement or ratifies it, the terms are binding on the nation. Examples of agreements that have been ratified by UNCITRAL include the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea.
UNCITRAL members also draft model laws which are intended to be incorporated into the national laws of member nations. These laws are not laws in and of themselves, as there is no legal system to enforce the laws. The idea is to provide member countries with a model text to use which they can then make part of their legal system. The UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Signatures, the Model Law on International Wire Transfers and the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration are examples of model laws created by UNCITRAL members.
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