India hosted the inaugural United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) South Asia conference from 14 to 16 September.
Key points
- The conference was organised jointly by the Ministry of External Affairs, UNCITRAL and the organisation’s national coordination committee for India.
- The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law is the core legal body of the United Nations system in the field of international trade law.
- India shares a unique relationship with UNCITRAL and has been a member of UNCITRAL since its inception being one of the first 29 member States.
- UNCITRAL is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly of the United Nations with the general mandate to further the progressive harmonization and unification of the law of international trade.
- “Harmonization” and “unification” of the law of international trade refers to the process through which the law facilitating international commerce is created and adopted.
- It is not part of WTO. In contrast, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization independent from the United Nations.
- The WTO deals with trade policy issues, such as trade liberalization, abolition of trade barriers, unfair trade practices or other similar issues usually related to public law, whereas UNCITRAL deals with the laws applicable to private parties in international transactions.
- As a consequence, UNCITRAL is not involved with “state-to-state” issues such as anti-dumping, countervailing duties, or import quotas.
