Launch of the Legal Guide on Agricultural Land Investment Contracts

Philine Wehling

Dr Philine Wehling is the lead staff member for corporate sustainability due diligence in global value chains at UNIDROIT. She also is lead staff member for the implementation of the UNCITRAL/UNIDROIT Model Law on Warehouse Receipts, and she advises on the Institute’s other instruments related to agricultural trade and development as well as the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts. Since 2020, she regularly lectures on international commercial law at various universities.

Before joining UNIDROIT in 2019, Dr Wehling served as a Legal Advisor at the UNFAO Legal Office in Rome for about eight years, advising member countries on legal and institutional aspects of trade in agro-food products, sustainable agricultural development, and responsible natural resources management. She managed normative and project work in over 20 countries. Additionally, she was a government lawyer at the Federal Ministry of Justice in Berlin for nearly two years, focussing on consumer protection in international trade and representing the Ministry in OECD and UNCTAD expert committees.

Dr Wehling is admitted to the German Bar and holds a PhD in International Law with Highest Honors from Heidelberg University, completed at the Max-Planck-Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, for which she received the 2018 Prize for Excellence in Research from the Margot-und-Friedrich-Becke Stiftung zu Heidelberg. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Law from Hamburg University and a Law Degree from Passau University. Her academic background includes studies in Arabic Literature and Politics at Damascus University and French Culture at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Working languages: Arabic, English, French, German

Mr Rocco Palma

Rocco Palma is an Italian lawyer and diplomat who specialises in international trade law, private international law and intellectual property law. He was seconded to UNIDROIT by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation from December 2022. Before joining UNIDROIT, Rocco was an associate lawyer at d’Urso, Munari, Gatti (now Gatti, Pavesi, Bianchi, Ludovici), Milan, and a contract lecturer of International Trade Law at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Piacenza. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he served in Rome at the General Directorates for the European Union, Migration Policies and Promotion of the Country System, and abroad at the Embassies of Ankara, Ryadh and Tel Aviv, and at the Italian Mission to the EU in Bruxelles. At UNIDROIT, Rocco is primarily responsible for the Project on the UPICC and International Investment Contracts and the Rome Tre-UNIDROIT Task Force on contract practice and awards of the “Centre for Transnational Commercial Law and Investment Arbitration” under the UNIDROIT Academy. He also assisted the Secretary General in the exploratory study for the Joint HCCH-UNIDROIT Project on the law applicable to cross-borders holding of digital assets and tokens. Admitted to practice in the Court of Appeal of Lecce, Italy, Rocco has a bachelor of laws (summa cum laude) at the University of Pisa, a Master Degree and a PhD in International Trade and European Union Law at the High University Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Lecce, Italy. He regularly lectures on international economic law in several Italian and foreign Universities.

Jeannette Tramhel

Jeannette Tramhel joined the UNIDROIT Secretariat in 2024 as a Senior Legal Consultant to support the Institute’s ongoing work in agricultural development and private law. She had served previously with the Secretariat for Legal Affairs at the Organization of American States (OAS) as the Senior Legal Officer responsible for private international law and served also with the UNCITRAL Secretariat, with prior experience in international commercial law across the private and public sectors and academia. Jeannette holds an LL.M. from Georgetown University (with distinction), an LL.B. from Queen’s University in Canada, and is a member of the bar in Ontario and New York. She also holds degrees in agriculture and environmental design which inspire her passion and expertise in the nexus between international law and development, specifically in the areas of food security and sustainable agriculture.

Christopher Glasscock

Christopher Glasscock is an associate on the dispute resolution team at LOVILL.

His areas of practice include national and international litigation in civil and commercial matters, as well as experience in international arbitrations under the ICC, ICSID, UNCITRAL, and CECAP Rules, in disputes involving construction, logistics, joint ventures and States representation.

He has a degree in Law and Political Science from the Universidad Católica Santa María la Antigua de Panamá and has a Master of Laws (LL.M) in International Business and Economic Law with a Certificate in International Arbitration and Dispute Resolution from Georgetown University Law Center.

Among other relevant aspects, Christopher developed his international labor expertise working at the headquarters of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), in Paris (2018), and the International Arbitration Department of an international law firm in Washington DC (2020). In addition, Christopher publishes and regularly participates in dispute resolution and public international law issues.

In 2022, he founded Panama Young Arbitrators, the country’s first organization aimed at young professionals and students interested in developing experience in national and international arbitration.

Christopher is a national Correspondent of UNIDROIT, where he is responsible for providing input to the organization’s Secretariat and act as informal ambassador of UNIDROIT for missions and events held in the Republic of Panama.

Milos Levrinc

Professor Levrinc is specialised in private international law, including the law applicable to effects of contractual and non-contractual relationships, recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, etc. He has written articles in the broader space of commercial law, such as “Assignments of receivables in civil and commercial matters under the laws of the Slovak Republic” / Miloš Levrinc. In: Access to justice in Eastern Europe : AJEE : peer-reviewed journal. – Kyjev : Publishing House VD “Dakor”, 2023. – ISSN 2663-0575. – Vol. 6, no. 2 (2023), pp. 122-134. His expertise relates to a number of UNIDROIT projects, including the Model Law on Factoring and its Guide to Enactment, initiatives concerning the law applicable to digital assets, tokens and CBDCs, as well as some aspects of the project on Best Practices for Effective Enforcement.

Theodora Kostoula

Theodora Kostoula is a Legal Consultant at the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT). She is mainly responsible for UNIDROIT’s Projects on Economic Assessment of International Commercial Law Reform, Implementation of and Compliance with International Commercial Law Treaties and Digital Assets and Private Law.

Prior to joining UNIDROIT, she worked for several years in private practice at a Greek law firm and at the EU agency Fusion for Energy in Barcelona. Theodora also worked as a Teaching Associate in FinTech and digital currencies courses at the Florence School of Banking and Finance, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, and held positions as Visiting Scholar at Copenhagen Business School and as Sir Roy Goode Scholar at UNIDROIT.

Theodora is admitted to the Bar Association of Thessaloniki (Greece) and is currently a PhD Candidate at the European University Institute (EUI). She holds an LL.M in Transnational Commercial law (International Hellenic University, Thessaloniki) and a Degree in Law (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). Her main research and publication areas include distributed ledger technology, insolvency law and secured transactions.

Reinhard Zimmermann

I have been a member of the Working Group preparing the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts 2010 and 2016. My main areas of research are: Law of obligations and law of succession in historical and comparative perspective; relationship between the English common law and continental civil law; mixed legal systems (in particular Scotland and South Africa); harmonization of European private law.

Marcel Fontaine

Marcel Fontaine is Professor emeritus of the Law Faculty of the Catholic University of Louvain, where he taught the law of obligations, the law of contracts and the law of insurance. He has taught as a guest professor in several other universities. From 1979 till 2010, he took part in the working group which elaborated the Unidroit Principles of International Commercial Contracts. For 17 years, he has chaired another international working group devoted to the systematic analysis of specific clauses appearing in international contracts. He has prepared a Draft Uniform Act on the Law of Contracts for the 17 African member States of OHADA. He has been Secretary General, and is now Honorary President of the International Insurance Law Association (AIDA). He has long experience as a commercial arbitrator, domestic as well as international, ad hoc as well as institutional. He is the author of many publications. He is doctor honoris causa of the Universities of Geneva, Montpellier, Bourgogne and Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Irini Stamatoudi

Irini Stamatoudi is a Law Professor at the University of Nicosia (Cyprus) and a lawyer at the Supreme Court of Athens (Greece). She is specialised in Copyright and in Cultural Heritage Law. She holds degrees from the University of Athens – Greece (Law Degree) and the University of Leicester – UK (LL.M., Ph.D.). From 2007 – 2018 she was the General Director of the Hellenic Copyright Organisation (competent governmental organisation for copyright matters). She has taught at the Law School of the University of Leicester, on the joint LL.M. of the University of Turin, ILO, and WIPO, at the International Hellenic University, at the Academy of the World Intellectual Property Organization and on several other academic courses. For many years she acted as a legal counselor to the Ministry of Culture on issues of illegal trafficking of antiquities where she handled the famous return cases of masterpieces from the J. P. Getty Museum (in Los Angeles) and from the Leon Levy & Shelby White collection (NY). Since 1999 she has participated in several negotiation committees on the issue of Parthenon Marbles and is currently a member of the Ministry of Culture Advisory Committee on the Parthenon Marbles. She has published fourteen books in copyright and in cultural heritage law (whilst three more are in the pipeline) in Greece and abroad and several articles in academic journals worldwide. Some of her writings are considered internationally works of reference (e.g., I. Stamatoudi, Multimedia products as copyright works, Cambridge University Press, 2002, (reprint in paperback in January 2008, Kindle Edition 2010); I. Stamatoudi, Cultural Property Law and Restitution. A Commentary to International Conventions and European Union Law, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham (UK) – Northampton (US), 2011, I. Stamatoudi and P. Torremans (eds), European Union Copyright Law. A Commentary, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham (UK) – Northampton (US), 2014, and 2021 (2nd ed.)).

Verónica Ruiz Abou-Nigm

Professor Verónica Ruiz Abou-Nigm is Chair in Private International Law at Edinburgh Law School. She has widely published in private international law and has taught and researched in Europe and Latin America. Her work is published in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Her research focuses on the intersections between private international law and other disciplines, including international commercial arbitration, shipping law, migration, sustainable development and legal education.

Professor Ruiz Abou-Nigm is President of the European Law Faculties Association (ELFA), Vice-President of the American Association of Private International Law (ASADIP), and Member of the Scientific Council of the European Association of Private International Law (EAPIL).

Ole Böger

Dr Ole Böger is a Judge in Banking and Criminal matters at the Hanseatic Court of Appeal (Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht) in Bremen, Germany, and a Lecturer at the University of Bremen. Previously, he has been, amongst others, a Desk Officer at the German Federal Ministry of Justice and for Consumer Protection (2013-2016), a Legal Officer at UNIDROIT working on the Principles of Close-Out Netting (2012-2013) and a research assistant at the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and Comparative Private Law in Hamburg, Germany (2003-2008). He has represented the German government in UNCITRAL Working Groups and at UNIDROIT, specifically in the preparation and adoption of the UNIDROIT MAC Protocol, and he is an Ex officio Observer to the Preparatory Commission for the Establishment of the International Registry for MAC equipment. Recently, he has been an external consultant to secured transactions law reform projects of the World Bank in Suriname (2016), Greece (2020) and Lebanon (2021). Dr Böger holds law degrees of the University of Göttingen in Germany and King’s College London (UK) and he has authored numerous publications with a focus on international secured transactions law and the law of payment services.

Iacopo Donati

Professor Iacopo Donati is the UNIDROIT/Bank of Italy Chair Holder and is mainly responsible for assisting in the Bank Insolvency project. He is Professor of Corporate and Insolvency Law at the University of Siena, and coordinates the research project ‘Pro.Re.Ba.’ (Proportionating rules on bank crisis prevention and management to the case of retail banks), which has received funding from the Italian Ministry of University. He has previously taught corporate law at the University of Venice ‘Ca’ Foscari’, at the University of Florence and at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’.

Professor Donati is the author of several publications on corporate law, restructuring, insolvency law, and bank crisis management. On the same topics, he has been invited as a speaker to various international and national conferences and participated in some high-impact international, European, and national research projects. Professor Donati’s education includes a Ph.D. in Corporate Law (University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’), an LLM in Corporate Governance (Stanford Law School), and a Law Degree with honors (University of Florence). He is qualified as an attorney in Italy and in the State of New York (USA).

Giulia Stella Previti

Giulia Stella Previti is a Legal Officer at the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT), based in Rome. Giulia has primary responsibility for UNIDROIT’s projects on the Legal Nature of Voluntary Carbon Credits and on Digital Assets and Private Law.

Prior to joining UNIDROIT, Giulia was a Senior Vice President at Burford Capital, where she analyzed opportunities to invest in a wide array of legal assets, specializing in evaluating international arbitration claims and awards. In addition, Giulia spent about seven years in private practice at Freshfields in New York, where she was a Senior Associate focusing on international arbitration and litigation matters. Giulia also clerked in US federal court for Senior Judge Jack B. Weinstein in the Eastern District of New York.

Giulia is admitted to the New York Bar and obtained her Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law. She has a Masters of Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor of Arts from University College London.

Priscila Pereira de Andrade

Priscila Pereira de Andrade works as a Legal Officer at UNIDROIT. She is mainly responsible for the Agricultural Development and Private Law projects jointly developed with IFAD and FAO (Legal Structure of Agricultural Enterprise, Agricultural Land Investment Contracts and Contract Farming). Priscila holds a Ph.D. in International Law from the University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (France), a Master Degree in International Relations from the University Center of Brasília (Brazil), and a specialisation degree in International Environmental Law from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). Before joining UNIDROIT, she worked for the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and was an assistant professor at the University of Pisa (Italy), as well as an associate professor at the Master in Law Program of the University Center of Brasília.

Keni Kariuki

Keni Kariuki works as a Legal Consultant/MAECI Chairholder at UNIDROIT. He is mainly responsible for assisting in the “Private Law and Agricultural Development” projects jointly developed with IFAD and FAO (Collaborative Legal Structures for Agricultural Enterprises, Agricultural Land Investment Contracts and Contract Farming). Keni holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Political Economy from SOAS University of London (United Kingdom), a Master’s degree in International Human Rights Globalisation and Justice from Keele University (United Kingdom), he completed his Bar Vocational Course (BVC) at Nottingham Trent University (United Kingdom), and has a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in Law and Politics (Dual Degree) from Keele University. Before joining UNIDROIT, he worked for the African Union Commission (AUC) and as a consultant for other multilateral actors such as Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), FAO, and Bread for the World, among others.

Faruk Kerem Giray

Dr Giray graduated from Istanbul University’s Law Faculty in 1998 before obtaining a postgraduate degree in EU Law from Marmara University European Union Institute in 2000. He carried out academic research at the London University Advanced Legal Studies Institute for his doctorate thesis in 2004. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Private Law from Istanbul University’s Social Sciences Institute in 2007. He worked as a research assistant from 1999 to 2007 at Istanbul University’s Law Faculty in the Private International Law Department. Then, he was appointed as a military judge to the 2nd Army Commandership for military service.

He was appointed as an assistant professor in 2008. While conducting research at Georgetown University’s School of Law, he was granted with a scholarship from the Turkish Higher Education Council and Georgetown University for the 2011-2012 academic year. He simultaneously conducted research on ICSID arbitration at the World Bank and also at the Library of Congress.

Dr Giray was appointed as an associate professor in 2013 due to his articles and book named “Compensation Arising from Expropriation in International Investment Arbitration and Methods Used in the Calculation of Compensation”. He was appointed as a full-time professor in the same department in 2020 due to his articles, projects and a new book named “Limitation Periods in International Private and Procedural Law”.

In 2022 he was appointed as a Correspondent of Turkey by the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT).

He gives courses on Private International Law and International Civil Procedural Law for undergraduates, as well as International Family and Child Law, Disability Rights and International Investment Law-ICSID Arbitration for postgraduate students of the Law Faculty and Social Sciences Institute at Istanbul University, while carrying out administrative duties at the same time. Currently, he is pursuing additional postgraduate studies on Tax Law.

Alvaro Galindo

Mr Alvaro Galindo is an International Counsel advising on dispute resolution matters, particularly those involving Latin American jurisdictions. Currently, he is the Dean of the Law School at Universidad de las Americas. His practice focuses on disputes between sovereign states and state-owned entities and private companies. He has been recognised by The Legal 500 Latin America and was noted in this publication as “outstandingly intelligent” and for his “incomparable capacity for coordinating, planning, strategic assessment, and for his diplomatic approach”.

He was as member of the international arbitration practice at Dechert LLP in Washington, D.C. He also served as the Director of the International Affairs and Arbitration Unit for the Republic of Ecuador’s Attorney General’s Office. He acted as a legal consultant for the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, D.C., and as regional director for the Latin American Development Corporation, where he coordinated the committee in charge of drafting the Arbitration Law of Ecuador.

Mr Galindo has significant teaching experience in the areas of dispute resolution, international investment, and arbitration law. He has authored numerous publications and articles related to arbitration and international investment law.

Currently, he is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, with a course on Advanced Topics in International Investment Arbitration and Adjunct Professor of Practical Aspects of Arbitration (Spanish course) at American University Washington College of Law.

Mr Galindo has represented sovereign states in international and regional forums: the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD; the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, UNCITRAL.

Member of the Court of the ICC International Court of Arbitration and arbitrator in various arbitration centres in Latin America. In September 2021, he was appointed to the list of arbitrators under the ICSID Convention.

My main areas of expertise related to UNIDROIT work include international commercial contracts, international civil proceedings and private international law.

Eduard Derek Wille

Derek was permanently appointed to the Supreme Court (now renamed the High Court) as a Judge, with effect from 1 November 2017. This after being in private practice for nearly thirty years. His main interest areas and focus areas are in commercial law, with a particular interest in Private International Law.

Derek has already used the UNIDROIT Principles and the UNIDROIT Model Clauses in several commercial High Court judgments since June 2022. He has benefitted immeasurably from being exposed to the workings of UNIDROIT. Put in another way, “my eyes have been opened”.

Derek has used the UNIDROIT Principles and the UNIDROIT Model Clauses as an interpretive aid by way of application in several judgments that have since been reported as precedent jurisprudence in South Africa. He has also effectively utilised the UNIDROIT Principles and the UNIDROIT Model Clauses to supplement domestic law in his judgments by referencing the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.

Mr Antenor Madruga

Antenor Madruga is a founding partner of the law firm Madruga BTW and recognised as a leading Brazilian lawyer in complex litigations and negotiations involving government criminal and administrative proceedings, particularly in multijurisdictional cases. He was the lead counsel in several of the major white-collar cases in Brazil. He is currently a member of the Self-Regulation Board of the Brazilian Federation of Banks (FEBRABAN). In his former career as a Federal Attorney, Mr. Madruga occupied several positions in the Brazilian government, among them: Director of the Department of Assets Recovery and International Legal Cooperation of the Ministry of Justice, Coordinator of the National Strategy Against Money Laundering (ENCCLA); Board of the Brazilian Financial Intelligence Unit (COAF); and National Secretary of Justice. Ph.D. in International Law.

Ms Valesca Raizer

Full Professor at the Department of Law at the Federal University of Espírito Santo -UFES. Professor of the Master’s Program in Procedural Law at UFES. Postgraduate in International Economics and Finance and PhD in Law and International Relations from the University of Barcelona. Member of the American Association of Private International Law – currently holds the position of Vice President of Communication and Publishing. Member of the Brazilian Academy of International Law; the Brazilian Association Elas no Processo; the Brazilian Association of Procedural Law; and the Brazilian Association of Women in the Legal Career. Member of the International and Latin American Networks of International Civil Procedure. Coordinator of the Research Group and the Jurisprudence Observatory – Labyrinth of the Codification of International Civil Procedural Law. Researcher in the project “Keys for Digital and Algorithmic Justice with a Gender Perspective. Practice Areas: Public International Law. Private International Law. International Civil Procedural Law. Comparative law. International Trade Law. Theory and Comparison between Systems. Main areas related to the work of UNIDROIT: Civil Procedure; ELI Model European Rules of Civil Procedure; ALI/UNIDROIT Principles; Best Practices for Effective Enforcement; Cross-Border Investment; Law and Technology; Arbitration; Intellectual Property and other subjects.

Mr Lauro Gama Jr.

Mr Gama Jr. is a Brazilian lawyer and arbitrator. Currently, he holds the position of Adjunct Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio (PUC-Rio), where he teaches Private International Law and International Commercial Arbitration. He is a correspondent of the UNIDROIT since 2016 and a member of the CISG Advisory Council. Mr Gama Jr. acted as counsel and arbitrator in more than 100 cases, under the rules of ICC, LCIA, UNCITRAL and Brazilian arbitral institutions. His experience includes corporate law, M&A transactions, shareholders agreements, major construction contracts, built-to-suit contracts, insurance disputes, international sale of goods, services, consulting, joint-ventures and transfer of technology. He has authored a number of books and articles related to the UNIDROIT Principles. In 2016, Lauro lectured at the Hague Academy of International Law on the topic of “The UNIDROIT Principles as the law applicable to commercial contracts”, which was published in vol. 406 of the Collected Courses.

Lauro participated in the UNIDROIT working groups which produced the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, 3rd edition (2005-2010), and the Model Clauses for the use of the UNIDROIT Principles (2012-2013). Moreover, he worked on the Portuguese version of the Black Letter rules of the 2016 UNIDROIT Principles, and was one of the five experts who collaborated with UNCITRAL, HCCH and UNIDROIT to develop the “Legal Guide to Uniform Instruments in the Area of International Commercial Contracts, with a Focus on Sales”, which was published in 2021.

Mr José Augusto Fontoura Costa

Mr Fontoura Costa researches and teaches International Business Law and Comparative Law at the University of São Paulo. He focuses on issues such as: (i) arbitration; (ii) civil procedure; (iii) commodities production and trade; (iv) company law; (v) contract law and clauses; (vi) energy; (vii) information technologies; (viii) infrastructure; (ix) intellectual rights; (x) negotiable instruments; and (xi) transport law. He also acts as lawyer and arbitrator.

Mr Márcio Ferro Catapani

Mr Ferro Catapani is a Federal Judge and Professor at the Federal University of São Paulo. He has experience in research and teaching of commercial law and financial market regulation. His main areas of expertise related to the work of UNIDROIT, include: (i) legal structure of agricultural enterprises; (ii) capital markets and banking law; (iii) bank insolvency; (iv) netting; (v) factoring; (vi) franchising; (vii) leasing; (viii) negotiable instruments; (ix) security Interests.

Fabio holds a PhD (summa cum laude) in Civil Law, with research on secured transactions and security rights, from Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris 2) and University of São Paulo, Brazil.

He is lawyer in Brazil, acting in the field of real estate law and financing, including receivables financing through the capital markets for the real estate industry.

He was also a delegate of Brazil in UNCITRAL Working Group VI (Security Interests) and he has assisted multiple organizations and governments in drafting secured credit and public registries’ reforms, including in Angola, Brazil, Madagascar, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe.

Professor Sheelagh McCracken is Professor of Finance Law at the University of Sydney, Australia and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.

She has lectured on finance law in various centres in Australia and around the Asia-Pacific region, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo. She writes and speaks regularly on secured transactions law, focusing in particular on the development, operation and application of personal property securities legislation in Australia.

A graduate of the University of Cambridge, she obtained her PhD from the University of Sydney, which was subsequently published in the UK as The Banker’s Remedy of Set-Off and is currently in its third edition. Other major publications include a standard Australian text, Everett & McCracken’s Banking and Financial Institutions Law which she has co-authored since its first publication over 30 years ago and is now in its 9^th edition.

Professor of Space Law and Emeritus of International Law, Sapienza University of Rome. Vice-President of Italian Society for International Organization (SIOI). Chairman of European Centre for Space Law (ECSL/ESA). General Counsel of International Astronautical Federation (IAF). Member of the Advisory Council of European Space Policy Institute (ESPI). Senior Legal Advisor of Italian Space Agency (ASI).

Legal Expert at Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Italian Delegate to the 2001 Cape Town Diplomatic Conference for the Adoption of the UNIDROIT Convention on International Interests in High Value Mobile Equipment and Protocol on Matters specific to Aircraft Assets.

Chair of the Committee of Governmental Experts for the preparation of a Protocol to the Cape Town Convention on Matters specific to Space Assets (2003-2012). Chair of the Committee of the Whole of the 2012 Berlin Diplomatic Conference, which adopted the Protocol.

Since 2013, Chair of the Space Preparatory Commission, set up as Provisional Supervisory Authority for establishing the International Registry for Space Assets under the guidance of UNIDROIT General Assembly. Since 2010, UNIDROIT correspondent for Italy.

Italian delegate to UNCOPUOS, since 1997. Chairman of Legal Subcommittee (2004-2006) and Co-chair of Expert Group on Regulatory Regimes of the Working Group on Long-Term Sustainability of the Outer Space Activities (2010-2018).

Since 2007, Italian delegate to the Council of the EU for the Negotiation of the International Code of Conduct on Outer Space Activities (ICoC). Chair of the multilateral negotiations on ICoC held at the United Nations (New York, 2015).

Member of two UN Group of Governmental Experts on Outer Space Transparency and Confidence-Building Measures (TCBMs, 2011-2013), and on Practical Measures for the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS, 2018-2019). Member of the Specialized Panel of Permanent Court of Arbitration pursuant to Optional Rules on Disputes relating to Outer Space Activities.

Olga Fonotova

Ms Olga Fonotova is an Associate Professor of the Faculty of Law (Department of Legal Regulation of Business) at the Russian National Research University “Higher School of Economics” in Moscow. She holds a PhD degree cum laude in private law / private international law from the Lomonosov Moscow State University (2006). Her academic and teaching interests cover private international law, international and national commercial law, with a focus on unified and non-state legal regulation of cross-border commerce.

Olga is a Russian law qualified practicing lawyer in the sphere of national and international commercial and corporate law with 20+ years’ experience in leading law firms. As part of her legal practice, she has advised multinational corporations on the setting up of multi-jurisdictional commercial relations, on the formation / termination of international joint ventures, restructuring of assets, and financing / refinancing of projects. For her work on commercial and corporate legal matters she was included in the international rating of leading lawyers “The Best Lawyers® in Russia” (2018 – 2022).

She is a UNIDROIT alumna (2011) and a Correspondent of UNIDROIT in Russia (2023 – 2025). From 2016 to 2021 Olga was a member of the ICC Commission on Commercial Law and Practice (ICC CLP) and a member of the Association of European Business (AEB) in Moscow.

Francisco Sánchez-Gamborino

Correspondent of UNIDROIT since 1998
Attorney since 1978, specialist in international road transport law and transport insurance law.
Doctor in Law. Thesis, concerning liability of the carrier (cum laude).
Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Law.
Vice-president of the Committee on Legal Affairs of the International Road Transport Union (IRU, Geneva, Switzerland)
Chairman of the “ad hoc” Working Group for the updating of the IRU 1976 model of CMR consignment note, which was approved by IRU in 2007.
Member of the International Legal Assistance Network agreed by the IRU.
Consultant to the United Nations in traffic and road transport international conventions.
Member of the Board of Directors and President of the Working Group “Transport Insurance” in AIDA (International Association of Insurance Law), Spanish section – SEAIDA.
Lecturer in various University Master degrees (postgraduate courses) and speaker in various national and international congresses on Transport Law, transport insurance, etc.
Author of several books (including the first book in Spain dealing with the whole CMR Convention) and hundreds of articles about Transport Law, Transport Insurance and other transport related activities. Member of the Editorial Staff of the legal journal European Transport Law (Antwerpen, Belgium).
Sanchez-Gamborino’s opinions have been quoted several times as legal literature by Spanish Courts of Justice when deciding transport cases.
Speech (November 2008) before the Spanish Parliament when National Transport Law, now in force, was being worded. His opinions quoted in the Bulletin of the Spanish Senate (September 2009).
As to his relationship with UNIDROIT, his texts published several times in the Uniform Law Review (nr. 2001-3, pp. 643-648; nr. 2006-3, pp. 677-682; nr. 2016-4, pp. 561-573) and attended meetings at Rome, such as when drafting the CRTD (Convention on the civil liability for damages on the transport of dangerous goods), May 1986, jointly with the Delegation of IRU.

Ben Schuijling

Ben Schuijling’s expertise spans the broad field of business law, with an emphasis on secured transactions, restructuring and insolvency. In relation to the work of UNIDROIT his areas of expertise include security interests, factoring, leasing, commercial contracts, agency and intermediated securities.

Sandeepa Bhat

Prof. (Dr.) Sandeepa Bhat is working as a Professor of Law and Director of Centre for Aviation and Space Laws at National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. He has the teaching and research experience of nearly twenty years. He was a University First Rank holder with double gold medals for his LL.M. and a University Third Rank holder with gold medal for top-scoring his college during LL.B. His five Major Research Projects are sponsored by World Bank, ISRO, the WB Judicial Academy, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Apart from being UNIDROIT Correspondent for India, he has the distinction of being a member of the American Society of International Law, International Academy of Space Law, and the International Institute of Space Law. Dr. Bhat has published eight books and more than fifty five articles in the journals of international and national repute. He has presented over hundred and forty research papers in the international and national conferences including the coveted International Astronautical Congress, as well as in international conferences held at Jakarta, Seoul, Sharjah, Singapore, Changsha, Paris, Austin, Southampton and Cambridge. He also has the distinction of being a member of Indian Space Research Organization’s Expert Group for drafting the National Space Act for India.

Bruce Whittaker

Bruce Whittaker is an Honorary Senior Fellow at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. Before joining the Law School, Bruce was for many years a lawyer and partner at law firm Ashurst.

Bruce’s legal expertise is in the field of banking and finance law, with a particular focus on secured transactions law.

Bruce has been involved in a number of UNIDROIT projects. He was a member of the Australian delegation to UNIDROIT that developed and settled the text of the MAC Protocol to the Cape Town Convention. He continues to represent Australia as a member of the Preparatory Commission that is tasked with the implementation of the MAC Protocol, and in that context is chair of the drafting committee for the development of the regulations that will underpin the operation of the Register. Bruce is also a member of the expert working groups that have been established by UNIDROIT to develop its proposed Model Laws on Factoring and Warehouse Receipts. He is the co-chair of the drafting committee for each of these Model Laws.

Bruce has honours degrees in law and arts from the University of Melbourne.

Guillermo Caballero

My main areas of expertise related to the work of UNIDROIT are Capital Markets, Security Interests and Commercial Contracts

Ergun Özsunay

Ergun Özsunay graduated from the Istanbul University Faculty of Law in 1957 and joined the faculty staff. As a research assistant he studied with Alfred F. Conard and E. Allan Farnsworth (visiting professors, 1957-59). He attended graduate studies at Harvard Law School in 1959/60 (LL.M.). He obtained his PhD degree at Istanbul University (1961). In 1962 and 1963 he attended “Faculté International pour l’Enseignement de Droit Comparé” (“Diplome de Droit Comparé” and “Diplome d’Etudes Supérieures de Droit Comparé”) in Strasbourg. Then he studied at Max Planck Institut für auslaendisches-und internationales Privatrecht” for his Habilitationsschriftı (1965/66). He was appointed full professor of law for Civil Law and Comparative Law at Istanbul Uni. Faculty of Law and elected as the Director of the Institute of Comparative Law in 1978. He was active in the AIDC and AISJ (former president). After his retirement Prof. Özsunay served as a member of the Turkish delegations in UNCITRAL and DH-BIO (CoE). At present he teaches Civil Law (Contracts and Specific Types of Contracts, Torts (Civil Liability), Secured Transactions, comparative competition law, and International Arbitration and the US legal system). He has written several books and works on these topics.

Prof. Özsunay represented Türkiye in the following diplomatic conferences: “Convention on Agency in the International Sale of Goods” (1983); “Convention on the Applicable Law to Contracts for the International Sale of Goods” (1985); “Unidroit Conventions on International Factoring and International Financial Leasing” (1988), and in several Working Groups in UNCITRAL (II, III, VI).

He continues his activities in the following international organizations: “International Academy of Comparative Law (AIDC/IACL) (membre titulaire); “International Association of Legal Science” (A.I.S.J./IALS); “UNIDROIT” (correspondent member); “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rechtsvergleichung” (correspondent member);“International Association of Procedural Law”; UNCITRAL WG II (Arbitration-Conciliation, until 2019); WG III (Online Dispute Resolution, and Investor-State Dispute Settlement) (until 2019); CoE: DH-BIO” (until 2019).

Ana Elizabeth Villalta Vizcarra

I am a lawyer and notary; Master in International Trade; Career Ambassador of the Diplomatic Service of El Salvador; Professor of Private International Law, Public International Law and Integration Law; Rapporteur on Private International Law when I was a Member of the Inter-American Juridical Committee of the OAS for 16 years; author of several articles on private international law; lecturers at various American Universities on issues of private international law; Panelist on the Vienna Convention on the International Sale of Goods at the UNCITRAL/UNCITRAL headquarters; Member of IHLADI (Instituto Hispano Luso Americano de Derecho Internacional); Founding Member of ASADIP (American Association of Private International Law); member of AMEDIP (Mexican Association of Private and Comparative International Law).

Dhafer Dridi

Dhafer DRIDI is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences of the University of Tunis. He teaches international contract law to the students of the master’s programme in International Business Law.

Dhafer is also an attorney in Tunisia, having practiced law since his admission to the Tunisian Bar in 2005. He is currently the proprietor of a law office in Tunis that offers legal services in several areas, such as arbitration, private international law, corporate law, banking and finance.

Dhafer has authored numerous academic articles published in local and regional revues and books.
Dhafer has been invited as a speaker to several symposia and events addressing significant legal issues relating to arbitration and private international law. He is a native speaker of Arabic and a fluent speaker of French and English.

Dhafer has held a number of positions in academic, research, and civil society organisations. In particular, he was a trainer at L’Institut Supérieur de la Magistrature (The Higher Institute of the Judiciary), L’Institut Supérieur de la Profession d’Avocat (The Higher Institute of the Legal Profession), and L’Ecole Nationale des Finances (The National School of Finance).

Dhafer was a member of the research commission at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines – University of Paris-Saclay and a member of the translation team of the Diplomatic Conference which adopted the Aircraft Protocol under the auspices of UNIDROIT. He is a vice-president of the Tunisian Association for ADR.

Dhafer participated in several academic trainings and summer programmes offered by globally-renowned institutions abroad. He was a visiting researcher at UNIDROIT from December 2007 to January 2008 and an independent researcher at the same institution from November to December 2005. In the summer of 2006, he took the summer course at The Hague Academy of International Law. In the summer of 2007, he took part in the intensive training offered by the International Training Centre for Human Rights and Peace Teaching in Strasbourg. Over the same summer, he also took the summer course of the Human Rights Institute in Strasbourg.

Allan Mukuki

Allan M. Mukuki, PhD Candidate (Navarra, Spain), LLM (Groningen, Netherlands), PGDip (KSL), LLB (Hons) (UoN), ACIArb (London), Advocate of the High Court of Kenya.

Allan Mukuki is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya as well as a Commissioner for Oaths. He is presently a PhD Candidate at the University of Navarra in Spain. He is also a holder of an LL.M in International Law and the Law of International Organizations, from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He has an LL. B (Hons) from the University of Nairobi, he is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (London). He further holds a post-graduate diploma in law from the Kenya School of Law. Allan is also a scholar from the Hague Academy of International Law.

Some of his many roles in the legal profession include Director of International Partnerships; a Doctoral Fellow; member of the Management Committee and moot court coordinator, all for Strathmore Law School; Research Fellow for the African Region (Kenya), for the European Research Council Grant Project on the interpretation of customary international law; and Acting Director for the Strathmore Institute of Advanced Studies in International Criminal Justice (SIASIC)
Allan has previously worked at A.F Gross Advocate; in various legal institutes; in governmental agencies and in the Judiciary of Kenya. He was also a Legal researcher in the Office of the Solicitor General, Kenya, for the Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya), a case that was before the International Court of Justice. His main areas of specialization include Public International Law, The Law of International Organizations, International Humanitarian Law, International and Regional (EAC) Refugee Law and Legal Policy Development.
Further, Allan has been involved in various national and international legal consultancies and projects; he has published several peer reviewed legal articles, a legal monograph and presented several legal papers in international conferences around the world. He has also developed several policy documents for Strathmore University as well as (currently operational) manuals and laws for the operation of the Judiciary as well as governmental agencies and regional agencies such as IGAD.

Andrea Santacoloma

ANDREA SANTACOLOMA
Director

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

Andrea Santacoloma is a Panamanian lawyer that focuses her practice on international commercial arbitration.

Prior to joining Adell & Merizalde, Andrea was the Deputy Director for Latin America of the ICC International Court of Arbitration for 5 years. In this role, she gained vast experience in the internal functioning of the ICC’s Secretariat and Court and saw first-hand the work of hundreds of arbitrators and ICC Court Members in the region. Andrea was also in charge of identifying new opportunities and potential users of the ICC Dispute Resolution Services (ICC DRS) in Latin America, in liaison with the ICC National Committees and other institutions in the region. She also worked as a lawyer advising local and international clients on business and corporate law and M&A in 3 Panamanian law firms.

She is currently the Executive Director of the Latin American Arbitration Association (ALARB), one of Latin America’s leading associations gathering practitioners and arbitrators, which seeks to encourage the use of arbitration and foster initiatives for the development of international arbitration in the region.

In July 2022, the G

overning Council of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) appointed Andrea as a Correspondent for Latin America. Namely, Andrea was appointed as a Correspondent for the Republic of Panama for the period 2022-2025.

EDUCATION

• American University Washington College of Law, LL.M. in International Arbitration and Business Law
• International Training Centre of the International Labor Organization (ILO) jointly with the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), Università degli Studi di Torino, and University Institute of European Studies (IUSE), LL.M. in International Trade Law & Dispute Resolution
• Universidad Católica Santa María La Antigua, LL.M. in Corporate Law
• Universidad Católica Santa María La Antigua, Degree in Law and Political Science
• Centro de Estudios Regionales de Panamá, Diploma in Entrepreneurship and Management of Small and Medium Enterprises

Bar admissions
Republic of Panama

Languages
Spanish, English, Italian (intermediate)

asantacoloma@adellmerizalde.com
+507 370 4155

Pedro Mendoza Montano

Lawyer and Notary Public dedicated to the area of corporate and international business law, founder of Iurisconsulti, Abogados y Notarios. Attorney-at-law and Notary Public with a Degree in Juridical and Social Sciences graduate from Francisco Marroquin University (Guatemala City, Guatemala). Masters of Law LL.M graduate from Columbia University (New York City). Arbitrator in several arbitrations carried out in Guatemalan arbitration centers and abroad. Professor of General Contract Theory, Commercial Contracts, and International Businness Law at the Faculty of Law of the Francisco Marroquín University. Expert witness in Guatemalan law in several cases before USA courts. Associate member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. Guatemalan expert appointed within the project of the Organization of American States (OAS) for the drafting of the “Guide on Applicable Law for International Commercial Contracts in the Americas” (2017). Guatemalan expert appointed within the Lucerna Project of the Hague Principles on the choice of applicable law in the field of International commercial contracts (2017). Guatemalan correspondent of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT 2022). Member of the group that participated in the translation of the English version into Spanish of “Unidroit Principles on International Commercial Contracts”, Edited by the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (Unidroit) Rome, Italy (2018). Observer in several meetings of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale Of Goods, Advisory Counsel (CISG-AC) (2015-2022). Guatemalan delegate to the United Nations Commission for International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) (2014-2015; 2021-2022). Member of the group that worked in the drafting of the Principles of Latin American Contract Law (2015-2017). Full member of The Asociación Americana de Derecho Internacional Privado (American Association on Private International Law).

Oleksandr Biryukov

Doctor of Law, Professor at Private International Law Department of the Institute of International Relations of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Oleksandr Biryukov successfully defended in Kyiv National University dissertations on Comparative Insolvency in 1999 and on Cross-Border Insolvency in 2010.

He is a proven legal consultant with extensive experience working in international projects in Ukraine funded by USAID, TACIS/European Commission, the World Bank, WTO, EBRD, DFID etc. He participated in drafting the Model Laws for CIS on Securities Market (1998-2000) and the Discussion paper in the frame of preparation of the Model law on Insolvency of Banks for CIS (2003-2004); was a member in the Governmental Delegation of Ukraine at Diplomatic conference convened in 2008 by Switzerland Confederation to discuss and adopt UNIDROIT Convention on Intermediated Securities (now is Geneva Securities Convention).

Dr. Biryukov is a bankruptcy specialist, scientist, consultant to the IMF (Ukraine, 2017-2018) and the World Bank (Kazakhstan, 2012-2018). Being a member to the World Bank Insolvency and Creditor/Debtor Regimes Task Force he was involved in preparation of the Report on the Treatment of the Insolvency of Natural Persons.

Prof. Biryukov teaches a number of private law university courses, including Private International Law, Bankruptcy, Cross-Border Insolvency, Comparative Securities Law and other.

He is a Fulbright Scholar (New York University School of Law, USA, 2000-2001). In 1996 Biryukov conducted a research at UNIDROIT and in 2009 received a grant from INSOL International to carry out research in the field of comparative and international bankruptcy.

He authored a number of publications, including a book Law and Legal System of Ukraine (JURIS Publishing Inc., 2005), a chapter Recent Bankruptcy Law Developments in Ukraine in Contemporary Issues on Public International and Comparative Law (Vandeplas Publishing Co., 2009), a brochure Research Guide to Ukrainian Law (NYU Globalex Journal, 2006), and more than 120 publications devoted to private law reform in Ukraine.

Hernany Veytia

NAME: PROF. DR. HERNANY VEYTIA (LL.M. YALE)
AFFILIATION DIRECTOR BNM-CAMBRIDGE STUDY CENTRE ON SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENTS
PRESENTATION
Professor of law, international strategic consultant, arbitrator, and entrepreneur. Hernany Veytia is very comfortable with complex, high-profile and confidential transactions. Her consulting experience as partner of BNM and Deloitte enables her to focus on and add value to the sustainable and commercial aspects of each deal. Frequently she leads transdisciplinary teams to deliver fact findings and legal opinions, feasibility studies and turn-key projects for banks, governments, international organisations, and corporations willing to expand or withdraw operations in other jurisdictions.
In Prof Veytia’s experience UNIDROIT works have been very useful to understand not only the foreign law, but also to recognise the cultural, political, and economic factors at play, and the way national and international regulators operate-and cooperate. In her opinion, UNIDROIT instruments have been of utmost importance for the legal strategies she designed for:
• DANPREIT (Dispute Analytics Platform for Real Estate Investment Trusts in the Agriculture, Construction and Mining industries).
• TELEKAIROS, innovative methodology that incorporates the use of space assets.
• Corporate art collections, restitutions, including donations, sponsorships, and loans to museums.
• Contracts used by a German waterworks company willing to grow in all the Caribbean and Central American countries.
• Liquidation of commercial and investment banks
• IPOs and reverse mergers for companies in the extraction industries (Canadian stock exchange), ILS listed in Bermuda and African sovereign funds listed in London.
• Franchising and other commercial contracts in the food & drinks, health, aero-space, and automotive industries.
In the last three decades Prof. Veytia has lived, and successfully completed investments and disinvestments in more than forty countries in the five Continents. She is frequently appointed as arbitrator and invited as speaker on risk transfers at international industry conferences in fields of her expertise: energy (both renewable and traditional), artificial intelligence, infrastructure, mining, real estate, agriculture, rail, space, automotive, and franchising. She sits in the board of directors of companies in Europe including the United Kingdom.

Suzanne Howarth

Suzanne Howarth is an Australian legal practitioner admitted to legal practice in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory as well as in England and Wales. Suzanne holds undergraduate and graduate law degrees from the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne, is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Director and an accredited mediator.

Suzanne joined the Australian Public Service in 1992. Before joining the Service, Suzanne worked with two major law firms in Sydney and in the City of London in the areas of insurance, international trade, and dispute resolution.

Since 2020, Suzanne has been an Executive Member of the International Law Section of the Law Council of Australia. For over two decades, Suzanne has worked as a senior Australian Government lawyer in various Australian central government agencies as well as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Suzanne’s areas of expertise include government and public administration, competition and consumer law, corporate law, public and international law, trade and investment, taxation, and the regulation of not for profits.

Juliana Rodríguez Rodrigo

Juliana is a lecturer in Private International Law at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Her main areas of research and teaching are international trade law, European competition law and international family law. In relation to the former, she is the author of 3 monographs, one of them on “Régimen jurídico de la abogacía internacional” (2003), another on “Abordaje marítimo y litigación internacional” (2007) and the third one on “Contratos internacionales de distribución comercial en el Derecho Internacional Privado de la Unión Europea” (2013). She has also published on international factoring contracts, international insolvency and international commercial and investment arbitration. With regard to European competition law, she is co-author of the monograph “La doctrina de las infraestructuras esenciales en Derecho antitrust europeo” (2012) and has also written on other issues related to this subject, such as the influence of Big Data on anti-competitive behaviour. Finally, within the last line of research mentioned, she is the author of a fifth monograph on ” Relaciones económicas de los matrimonios y las uniones registradas en España, antes y después de los Reglamentos (UE) 2016/1103 y 2016/1104″ (2019) and has publications on international successions and free movement of persons, among other subjects.
She has been Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of the Government of Spain, as delegate of Spain at the 51st Session of UNCITRAL and is a Member of the European Association of Private International Law – EAPIL- and has been part of the working group of this association created to draft the future European Regulation on Real Rights.
Her current research focuses on the legal issues raised by new technologies, including intellectual property rights in the metaverse and digital assets.

Maria Hook

Maria Hook is an Associate Professor at the University of Otago (Faculty of Law). Her main area of expertise is private international law, particularly in the New Zealand context. She is a joint author of The Conflict of Laws in New Zealand (LexisNexis, 2020).

Radwa Elsaman

Dr. Radwa Elsaman’s area of expertise includes commercial law, international comparative law, international sustainable development and the rule of law. She focuses mainly on the MENA region. In addition to being an Assistant Professor of Law at Cairo University in Egypt, she has lectured and conducted academic research at prominent universities throughout the United States, such as Cornell University School of Law and Boston University School of Law, and the Central European University in Europe.

With 20 years of experience, Dr. Elsaman is well known for assisting governments and private sector entities with legal and institutional reform. She has consulted for USAID on projects, including Automating Economic Courts in Egypt and Economic Stabilization Support for Syria. With the IDLO, she advised on Strengthening the Capacity of National Partners in Economic Laws and Capacity Building of Jordanian judges. Similarly, she advised the European Investment Bank on Improving Access to Finance by Facilitating SMEs’ Business Expansion. Moreover, she acted as a legal expert at the EU Euromed Justice Project. With the World Bank Group, she consulted on land and property projects in MENA. She was also engaged with other organizations, including the GIZ and the AFD. Between 2006 and 2015, Dr. Elsaman worked for international law firms, including Dentons and DLA Piper, where she represented clients in regulatory and transactional matters.

Her publications have appeared in worldwide-law journals. Currently, she contributes to the Cambridge Handbook on Comparative Law. Her book on “Comparative Franchising Law: United States, China, Malaysia, MENA Region” has been chosen as one of the six best books on franchising globally. She is a member of various professional global unions and is licensed to practice law in multiple jurisdictions. She got her LL.B. from Cairo University School of Law; an LL.M. from the IMO’s International Maritime Law Institute, a second LL.M. and J.S.D (PhD in Law), from the American University Washington College of Law.

Stefan Vogenauer

Stefan Vogenauer has been teaching an intensive masters course in ‘Global Commercial Contract Law’ as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne since 2012. He also taught the BCL/MJur options ‘Transnational Commercial Law’ and ‘International Commercial Arbitration’ at the University of Oxford, where he served as Professor of Comparative Law and Director of the Institute of European and Comparative Law from 2003 to 2015. He has taught and lectured widely in many European countries and has held Visiting Professorships at NYU Law School, the University of Auckland, the University of Paris 2, the University of Texas at Austin, Louisiana State University, National Taiwan University and National Law University Delhi.

Apart from legal history, his main research interests are in comparative private law, contract law and transnational commercial law. He is an expert in contract law where he has worked extensively on national laws (English, French and German) and on comparative, European and transnational aspects. He is the sole editor of the Commentary on the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (PICC) (2nd edn, Oxford University Press 2015), a standard reference work in the field. He is also a co-author of the leading student textbook in comparative contract law, the Ius Commune Casebook for the Common Law of Europe: Cases, Materials and Text on Contract Law (3rd edn, Hart Publishing 2019). His co-authored monograph on contracts written in English but governed by another law (Englisch als Vertragssprache) was published with CH Beck in 2018.

From 2017, Professor Vogenauer served as a member of the panel of experts for the drafting of the ‘tripartite’ Legal Guide to Uniform Instruments in the Area of International Commercial Contracts, with a Focus on Sales, published jointly by UNCITRAL, the Hague Conference and UNIDROIT.

Amnon Lehavi

Prof. Amnon Lehavi (J.S.D, LL.M, Yale) is Full Professor at the Harry Radzyner Law School, Reichman University, Israel, and former Dean of the Law School (2016-2021). He acts as Academic Director of the G City Real Estate Institute at Reichman University. Prof. Lehavi is a member of UNIDROIT’s Exploratory Expert Group on “Private Art Collections: Orphan Objects.” He also served as Co-President of the Law Schools Global League (2018-2021). Prof. Lehavi was a visiting professor at the University of Toronto (Canada), University of California, Berkeley (USA), Tilburg University (the Netherlands), KU Leuven (Belgium), and Luiss University (Italy).

An expert on property law, urban law and policy, cultural property, international economic law, and law and globalization, Prof. Lehavi is the author of Property Law in a Globalizing World (Cambridge UP, 2019) and The Construction of Property: Norms, Institutions, Challenges (Cambridge UP, 2013), and the editor of Disruptive Technology, Legal Innovation, and the Future of Real Estate (Springer, 2020), One Hundred Years of Zoning and the Future of Cities (Springer, 2018), and Private Communities and Urban Governance: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives (Springer, 2016).

Email: alehavi@runi.ac.il; Twitter: @Alehavi; ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7976-9546.

David Morán Bovio

I discovered UNIDROIT’s work through the study on Transport Terminals [when writing on OTT UN Convention (1991)]. Afterwards the Principles on International Commercial Contracts (Chapter 6, within a volume devoted to the Principles under my coordination, and Chapter 9.1, in Bonell Fs).
I directed (and still I am mentoring) Master’s and PhD students’ research to deep in documents ending up in ULIS, to get a better CISG understanding on different CISG Articles (e.g., 7, 25, 78 and 79).
With a group of students, we translated to Spanish the Guide to International Master Franchise Arrangements 1st. edition.
Lastly, with a group of University colleagues and other bank experts we sent comments on Model Law on Factoring and on Principles on Digital Assets within the last four months or so.
Apart from UNIDROIT’s works, but on international trade law area, I have had the benefit to represent Spain in UNCITRAL (1989-2014). There, I chaired the Plenary (1994) and two working groups: NIEO (1993-1994, while drafting Model Law on Procurement of Goods, Construction and Services, 1994) and the one on International Contract Practices (1995-2001) during the Convention on Assignment of Receivables on International Trade (2001) preparation. I was member of the Spain Delegation in Working Group V, dealing with Insolvency Law (2001-2014), and Working Group III (2001-2008) when drafting Rotterdam Rules.
Consequently, my publications are within that ambits.
In Spanish Law I wrote on Companies, Commercial Registry, Loans (with particular attention to interests’ debt in it and in other credit contracts, also on lack of timely payment).
I was granted (DAAD, A. v Humboldt S. and Salvador de Madariaga) to research periods (three years in a sum) in MPI (Hamburg).
I coach my University students’ teams to Willem C Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot and to MOOTmadrid.

Walter Doralt

Walter Doralt has his main research interests in Civil Law, European Private Law, and Company Law, with methods drawing on Comparative Law (Austria, Germany, England, France, Italy and Switzerland) as well as Law and Economics. His habilitation (Bucerius Law School) dealt with Long Term Contracts.

Belén Moreno Bendlin

María Belén Moreno is an upcoming lawyer focusing on international commercial and investment arbitration cases.
She works in the Dispute Resolution Department, mainly representing national and international clients in commercial arbitrations before the Centro de Arbitraje y Mediación Paraguay (CAMP), Paraguay’s only arbitration institution, and in ad hoc arbitration proceedings.
Belén is a newly admitted member to the Arbitrator list of CIACBLP (Centro Internacional de Arbitraje – Cámara de Bélgica y Luxemburgo en el Perú).
She was a part of the National University of Asuncion´s commercial arbitration moot team as an oralist, receiving an honorable mention at the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot in 2015. Ever since, she has been coaching the University´s moot teams in the Latin America moot and the Willem C. Vis Moot.
Belen has an LL.M. from Georgetown University and has graduated with academic honors as part of the Dean’s List 2020. She also earned a Certificate in International Arbitration and Dispute Resolution.

Fabián Villeda Corona

Fabián is a Senior Associate in the area of Litigation and Arbitration.

His practice focuses on Construction and Infrastructure Law, Public-Private Partnerships, Concessions, Public and Private International Law, Free Trade and Investment Treaties, International Contracting, Civil, Corporate, Administrative, and the resolution of disputes through Domestic and International Arbitration and Dispute Boards in the aforementioned areas of law. Fabián works on disputes related to the sectors and/or industries of construction and infrastructure, airports and ports, insurance, banking and finance, energy, and foreign investment.

Fabián has large experience advising and/or representing government agencies and companies in domestic and international arbitrations under different arbitration rules (ICC, UNCITRAL, LCIA, ICSID, etc.).

Fabián completed an internship at a law firm in Chile in the area of International Contracts and International Arbitration. He completed a period of training and academic research on the relationship between International Investment Arbitration and the law and jurisprudence of the World Trade Organization, specializing in non-discrimination clauses in both their substantive and procedural form in international economic law, at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany as part of his LL.M.

Fabián is Arbitrator and Secretary of Arbitral Tribunal of the Conciliation and Arbitration Center of Tegucigalpa Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He is also Arbitrator of the Arbitration Center of México (CAM), Ibero-American Arbitration Center (CIAR), Institution for the Resolution of Disputes on Blockchain and Technology (IBT) and is part of the list of potential Arbitrators of the General Secretariat of the Madrid International Arbitration Center (CIAM). He has had experience for several years as a professor and participates regularly as a participant as well as speaker or lecturer in forums, colloquiums, training courses and international workshops on different subjects. He is fluent in Spanish, English and French. Basic knowledge of German (level A1 CEFR).

Alejandro M. Garro

My main areas of expertise related to the work of UNIDROIT include international commercial contracts and secured transactions, as well as international civil procedure and private international law.

Dyalá Jiménez

Dyalá Jiménez is a Costa Rican national who specializes in conflict resolution. She is frequently appointed as arbitrator in international treaty-based and contract-based disputes, both under institutional rules and ad hoc procedures. She is also trained in mediation by ICSID/CEDR and acts as conciliator in local complex disputes.

She is a member of the ICSID panel of conciliators and arbitrators for Costa Rica and of the ICC International Court of Arbitration. Dyalá is also a member of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) Governing Board.

In terms of her academic background, she is a Fulbright Scholar and alumnus of Georgetown University Law Center (LLM ‘99) and is author of numerous publications (visit www.djarbitraje.com). She has teaching experience in Costa Rica (Lead University, 2017) and in Chile (Universidad de Chile undergraduate and the Heidelberg/Universidad de Chile LLM Program, from 2004 to 2013). Dyalá is also the correspondent for Costa Rica of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law, UNIDROIT.

From 2018 to 2020, Dyalá served as Minister of Foreign Trade of Costa Rica and in such capacity was charged with public policy on exports and foreign direct investment. In that role, she also led the country’s efforts to become the 38th member of the OECD, which included passing 14 laws of varied complexity and sensibility. During those two years Dyalá had to tackle a diversity of disputes including frictions with trade partners, obstacles in land transportation, challenges arising out of the Pandemic, strike on the ports, among others.

Dyalá is a member of the board of directors of Costa Rica’s investment promotion agency, CINDE, and served on the board of the local Chamber of Commerce.

Dyalá has lived in Washington, DC, Paris and Santiago (Chile) and works in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese.

Cecilia Fresnedo de Aguirre

Doctor of Law and Social Sciences, University of the Republic (1978); Professor of Private International Law at the University of the Republic (1984-) and at the Catholic University of Uruguay (1994-2017); Member of the Uruguayan Institute of Private International Law (1984-) and Director (2017-2021); Professor at the Uruguayan Centre of Judicial Studies (2017-).
Visiting professor at several universities and institutions in foreign countries, professor at the Hague Academy of International Law (2015).

Author of 26 books and 175 chapters in books and articles published in Uruguay and abroad. Some of the main ones are La Autonomía de la Voluntad en la Contratación Internacional, Montevideo, FCU, 1991 (Thesis); Curso de Derecho del Transporte, Montevideo, coauthor Fernando Aguirre Ramírez, FCU, 8 volumes, several editions (1999-2011); Curso de Derecho Internacional Privado, Montevideo, FCU, 3 volumes, several editions (2001-2015); “Public Policy: Common Principles in the American States”, Recueil des cours, Vol. 379 (2016), Leiden/Boston, Brill Nijhoff, 2016, pp. 73-396; Legal Aspects of Cruises, Editor and author of the General Report, Ius Comparatum – Global Studies in Comparative Law, Volume 56, Switzerland, Springer, 2022; Derecho Internacional Privado. Parte General. Jurisdicción estatal y arbitral, Tomo I, 1st ed., Montevideo, FCU, 2022; Derecho Internacional Privado. Parte Especial Civil y Comercial, Tomo II, 1st ed., Montevideo, FCU, 2022; Derecho Internacional Privado. Parte Especial Civil y Comercial, Tomo III, 1st ed., Montevideo, FCU, 2022.

Lecturer and panelist in more than 150 seminars, conferences and workshops.

Research activities: Fulbright scholarship, University of California at Davis (1988); at UNIDROIT (1998); at the University of the Republic, Uruguay, and at foreign universities.
Professional experience as external Consultant on Private International Law matters to several Uruguayan and foreign law firms and institutions and as arbitrator.
Main areas of expertise related to the work of UNIDROIT: international contracts, international family law issues, cross border insolvency, international procedural issues, access to justice.

Craig Forrest

Mr Forrest is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Marine and Shipping Law Unit at the University of Queensland. He teaches maritime law, private international law and cultural heritage law and has a broad research interest in the unification of private maritime law. His most recent book is, with Professor Nick Gaskell, The Law of Wreck (2019, Informa Law). His current work involves UNIDROIT’S implementation of the Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment, and particular, the possibility of adopting a Protocol addressing ships and maritime transport equipment. He also has an interest in cultural heritage and the current Private Art Collection’s project.

Pilar Perales Viscasillas

Professor Pilar Perales Viscasillas is the Chair of Commercial Law at Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M). She acts as a national and international arbitration in commercial law disputes.
Author of seven monographs in matters related to international sale of goods contracts, uniform law of international trade, commercial contract law, company law, insurance and arbitration, as well as more than 150 publications in collective and periodical works, several of them in English. Many of her publications relates to various Unidroit Legal instruments.
Professor Perales Viscasillas is the current Chair of the CISG-AC (Advisory Council on the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods) (2003) and Council Rapporteur of Opinion No. 4; she was an observer in the Working Group for the preparation of the third and fourth editions of the UNIDROIT Principles on International Commercial Contracts (2010 and 2016) (2007-2010 and 2017). She has been Spanish Delegate to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL-UNCITRAL) (2001-2014) in Working Group II on International Commercial Arbitration, and Spanish correspondent for CLOUT (2002-2017). She participated in the working group that drafted The UNCITRAL, HCCH, and UNIDROIT, Legal Guide to uniform instruments in the area of international commercial contracts, with a focus on sales.
Member of the Plenary of the Centro Internacional de Arbitraje de Madrid (CIAM) and Council member of The Spanish Club of Arbitration. Member of the Executive Board of SEAIDA (The Spanish Branch of AIDA, Association Internationale de Droit des Assurances). Co-Chair of the Cátedra de Derecho Empresarial Deloitte Legal.

She is also Director of the Moot Madrid, where usually UNIDROIT Legal texts are used; and co-Director of the Master on International Advocacy (UC3M).

Bernardo Rodríguez Ossa

Bernardo is a partner at Parra Rodríguez Abogados (Colombia) with more than 35 years of legal experience. Bernardo assists national and international clients in aviation regulatory matters, structured finance transactions, M&A operations, asset-based-financing, cross-border transactions and aircraft financing transactions under the Cape Town Convention.

Bernardo represents world-leading international airlines and financial institutions. His experience includes aircraft operating and financial leases, asset purchase and sale transactions, cross-border financing transactions, private placement transactions, secured loans and issuance of notes, among others.

Bernardo has also participated in some of the major M&A and financing transactions in Colombia, such as the financing of the Medellin Metro, the acquisition of Central, North and South Cerrejón, the acquisition of Bell South assets in Colombia, the establishment of Carrefour in Colombia and the first private placement abroad by the major Colombian airline, amongst others.

Furthermore, Bernardo is a member of the Aviation Working Group (“AWG”) legal panel and legal coordinator of the AWG Colombian National Contact Group.

Bernardo is a 1986 lawyer from Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia). In 1988 he obtained an LL.M in International Business Law from London School of Economics and Political Science in London, England.

Edgardo Muñoz

Edgardo Muñoz is a leading voice in the field of international business law as a member of Universidad Panamericana’s law faculty in Guadalajara, Mexico, from where he frequently contributes in specialized publications and discussion forums.

Besides his academic commitments, he practices in the area of international contracting and arbitration. He sits as arbitrator in international forums and represents clients in commercial and sport proceedings. He is a Member of the Court of Arbitration for Sports [CAS] and of the Appeal Tribunal of the International Gymnastics Federation.

Edgardo Muñoz is also a Member of the CISG Advisory Council and Correspondent of UNIDROIT in Mexico.

He received his Bachelor of Laws from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico, and Master of Laws degree (LLM) from University of Liverpool in the U.K. and a second Master of Laws degree (LL.M) University of California in Berkeley. His Doctor of Laws degree (PhD) suma cum laude is from University of Basel in Switzerland.

Teresa Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell

Dr Teresa Rodriguez de las Heras Ballell is an Associate Professor of Commercial Law at University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain.

She is currently an Academic Visitor at the University of Cambridge, and was Sir Roy Goode Scholar at UNIDROIT in 2021-2022. The topics addressed during these appointments have been: secured transactions, effective enforcement, and digital assets.

Asset-based finance and secured transactions, specially, the international legal harmonization instruments are one of her main areas of expertise with a significant level of specialization in the Cape Town Convention system. Within this remit, she was member of the Study Group for the MAC Protocol and delegate of Spain in the Diplomatic Conference, as well as an observer and a delegate of Spain at UNCITRAL for WG VI on secured transactions.

Digital law and technology-related private-law matters (platforms, AI, data, digital assets, algorithmic contracts) are her second area of primary research, expertise, and international experience. She is delegate of Spain at UNCITRAL WG IV on ecommerce (AI in international trade), and an Expert for UNCITRAL and UNIDROIT on digital economy projects. She is also member of the European Commission Expert Group on Liability and New Technologies, the EU Expert Group for the Observatory on Online Platform Economy, and the EU Expert Group on B2B Data Sharing and Cloud Computing. She is member of the European Law Institute (ELI) Executive Committee and Council and author of the ELI Guiding Principles on Automated Decision Making in Europe, 2022.

She is an arbitrator at the Madrid Court of Arbitration and the Spanish Court of Arbitration. She has acted as an arbitrator in a variety of commercial disputes, mostly financial agreements, and banking contracts, as well as commercial contracts in general (agency, distribution, service agreements). Besides, she held a European Central Bank scholarship to prepare a report on FinTech regulation. So, she is also specialized in financial regulation.

David Morán Bovio

I discovered UNIDROIT’s work through the study on Transport Terminals (when writing on Operators of Transport Terminals UN Convention). Afterwards the Principles on International Commercial Contracts (Chapter 6, within a volume devoted to the Principles under my coordination, and Chapter 9.1, in Bonell Fs, as a sequel from Assignment of Receivables UN Convention publications).
I directed (and still I am mentoring) Master’s and PhD students’ research to deep in different aspects of the documents ending up in ULIS, to get a better CISG understanding on different CISG Articles (e.g., 7, 25, 78 and 79).
In that documentary precedents vein one of the PHD students is digging on the documents related to Hotel Keepers and Travel Agencies.
With a group of students, we translated to Spanish the Guide to International Master Franchise Arrangements 1st. edition.
Lastly, with a group of University colleagues and other bank experts we send comments on Model Law on Factoring and on Principles on Digital Assets within the last four months or so.

Mr Alvaro Galindo

Mr. Alvaro Galindo is an International Counsel advising on dispute resolution matters, particularly those involving Latin American jurisdictions. Currently, he is the Dean of the Law School at Universidad de las Americas and partner at Carmigniani Perez Abogados. His practice focuses on disputes between sovereign states and state-owned entities and private companies. He has been recognized by The Legal 500 Latin America and was noted in this publication as “outstandingly intelligent” and for his “incomparable capacity for coordinating, planning, strategic assessment, and for his diplomatic approach”.
He was as member of the international arbitration practice at Dechert LLP in Washington, D.C. He also served as the Director of the International Affairs and Arbitration Unit for the Republic of Ecuador’s Attorney General Office. He acted as a legal consultant for the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, D.C., and as regional director for the Latin American Development Corporation, where he coordinated the committee in charge of drafting the Arbitration Law of Ecuador.
Mr. Galindo has significant teaching experience in the areas of dispute resolution, international investment, and arbitration law. He has authored numerous publications and articles related to arbitration and international investment law.
Currently, he is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, with a course on Advanced Topics in International Investment Arbitration and Adjunct Professor of Practical Aspects of Arbitration (Spanish course) at American University Washington College of Law.
Mr. Galindo has represented sovereign states in international and regional forums: the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD; the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, UNCITRAL.
Member of the Court of the ICC International Court of Arbitration and arbitrator in various arbitration centers in Latin America. In September 2021, he was appointed to the list of arbitrators under the ICSID Convention.

Professor Mads Bryde Andersen

Professor Mads Bryde Andersen (b. 1958) is a professor of private law at the Univer¬sity of Copenhagen. He is the author, or editor, of several books and articles in his field of contracts and obligations, intellectual property law and computer and high tech¬nology law. His authorship includes “Lærebog i Obligationsret I” (The law of Obligations, I, 5th edition, 2020), “Dansk Pensionsret” (Danish Pension Law, 2nd edition, 2017, with Jesper Mark), “Grund¬læggende aftaleret” (Basic Contract Law, 5th edition, 2021), “Enkelte transaktioner” (Commercial Transactions, 5th edition 2022), “Praktisk aftaleret” (Contract Law in Practice, 5th edition 2019), “Advokatretten” (The law of Advocates, 2nd edition, 2022, with Lars Lindencrone Petersen), “IT-retten” (The law of IT, 2nd edition, 2005) and “Ret og metode” (Legal Method, 2002). He has published numerous academic articles and anthologies. Since 2003 he has been the editor-in-chief of the most prestigious Danish legal periodical Ugeskrift for Retsvæsen, section B (The Weekly Law Report).

For a number of years Professor Andersen was the Danish delegation to UNCITRAL. From 1997 to 1998 he chaired the UNCITRAL working group on Electronic Commerce. He has been involved in a number of working groups within the OECD dealing with security and consumer issues of the information society and was the head of the Danish delegation during the OECD talks on encryption policy (1995-1996). From 2003 to 2012 he was co-chair and later chair of the Danish Guarantee Fund for Depositors and Investors.

Professor Andersen is a frequently used arbitrator in domestic and international arbitration matters and has been involved in more than 150 arbitration cases, either as chairperson, sole arbitrator or co-arbitrator.

Professor Andersen’s office address is:

UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN, FACULTY OF LAW
KAREN BLIXENS PLADS 16 (6A-3-26)
2300 COPENHAGEN S
Denmark
Mobile Phone +45 4058 0925
E-mail mads@jur.ku.dk

Tim Schnabel

Tim Schnabel served as the U.S. head of delegation for the negotiation of the UNIDROIT Principles on the Operation of Close-Out Netting Provisions, the initial work on the MAC Protocol to the Cape Town Convention, and the Preparatory Commission for the Space Protocol to the Cape Town Convention. He led U.S. participation in several UNCITRAL projects, including the Singapore Mediation Convention, the Mauritius Transparency Convention, the Model Law on Enterprise Group Insolvency, the Model Law on Recognition and Enforcement of Insolvency-Related Judgments, and the initial work on reform of investor-state dispute settlement. He also participated in the negotiation of the Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters. He now serves as the Executive Director of the Uniform Law Commission, which has worked within the United States since 1892 to draft and seek enactment of state legislation on topics for which uniformity of state law is useful and feasible. Uniform acts developed by the ULC, which have been enacted over 6,000 times by state legislatures, include the Uniform Commercial Code and hundreds of other acts related to real property, trusts and estates, family law, civil procedure, emerging technologies, unincorporated organizations, and other areas of law.

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak is the UNESCO Chair in International Law and Cultural Heritage and Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney. She has taught international law, cultural heritage law, human rights law, and international humanitarian law in Europe, Asia and Oceania, the Americas, and Middle East. She has been Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow (2017), Marie Curie Fellow (2006-2008) and Jean Monnet Fellow (2004-2006), Law Department European University Institute, Florence. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy (in Law) from the University of Sydney.

Professor Vrdoljak is the author of International Law, Museums and the Return of Cultural Objects (Cambridge University Press, 1e 2006 and 2008, 2e forthcoming) and editor of Oxford Handbook on International Cultural Heritage Law with Francesco Francioni (Oxford University Press 2020), and Oxford Commentary on the 1970 UNESCO and 1995 UNIDROIT Conventions with Andrzej Jakubowski and Alessandro Chechi (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2023). She is a General Editor, with Francesco Francioni, of the Oxford Commentaries on International Cultural Heritage Law (Oxford University Press) and book series, Cultural Heritage Law and Policy (Oxford University Press). She is President of the International Cultural Property Society (U.S.) and Chair of the Management Committee, International Journal of Cultural Property (Cambridge University Press).

Professor Vrdoljak is a member of UNIDROIT’s 1995 UNIDROIT Convention Academic Project (UCAP) and member of the UNIDROIT Export Group on Orphan Works. She is a member of UNESCO Expert Group preparing Model Provisions for the 1970 UNESCO Convention. She has served on expert panels for UNESCO, UNIDROIT, European Commission and the OHCHR. She has been a member of the ILA’s Cultural Heritage Committee since 2008. She has been a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court and Federal Courts of Australia since 1997, and Supreme Court of New South Wales since 1992.

Petra Butler

Petra is a German and New Zealand qualified lawyer. Her main areas of research are international commercial law, in particular international commercial contracts and international dispute resolution, and human rights. Currently she focuses especially on access to commercial justice issues and issues in relation to cross-border contracting by MSMEs. Petra is a law reform specialist. She has, inter alia, lead two Commonwealth projects: an inquiry into judicial diversity in Commonwealth small states and regarding international commercial arbitration in the Commonwealth. She is also the director of the Institute of Small and Micro States. The aim of the Institute is to provide a platform for research and law reform regarding issues pertinent to small states.

Professor Anna Veneziano

Anna Veneziano is the Deputy Secretary General of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT). She is a Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Teramo, Italy, where she was formerly the Director of the Department of Private Law. She has also formerly been a tenured Professor of European Property Law at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Her education includes a Law Degree with honours from the University of Rome La Sapienza, an LL.M degree from the Yale Law School funded by a Fulbright scholarship, and a PhD degree from the University of Florence (Italy).

Her main research and publication areas are on secured transactions as well as international, comparative, and European contract and sales law. Before joining UNIDROIT she was a member of the Italian delegation with respect to the Cape Town Convention on International Interests on Mobile Equipment and its Aircraft Protocol as well as its Space Protocol. She was also a member of the Study Group on a European Civil Code and of the Compilation and Redaction Group on a Draft Common Frame of Reference on European Private Law (DCFR), and of the restricted Expert Group set up by the European Commission on a common European law on sales.

Professor Ignacio Tirado

Professor Ignacio Tirado was appointed Secretary-General by the Governing Council at its 97^th session, and officially took office on 27 August 2018. A national of Spain, Professor Tirado (Commercial, Corporate and Insolvency Law, Universidad Autónoma of Madrid, Spain) holds a PhD from the Universities of Bologna and Autónoma de Madrid and an LLM from the University of London. Professor Tirado has been a Senior Legal Consultant at the World Bank’s Legal Vice-Presidency and Financial Sector Practice for more than nine years, having also consulted for the IMF on insolvency related matters as well as for the Asian Development Bank on commercial legal reform.

Amongst other accolades to his professional experience, Professor Tirado is a founding member of the European Banking Institute, an International Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and has been Director and Academic Co-Chair of the International Insolvency Institute.

Ms Lena PETERS

A Swedish national, Ms Lena Peters grew up in Italy where she attended an English school. In 1978 she took her Juris Kandidatexamen at Stockholm University followed by a Master of Laws from King’s College, London (1979). Since 1985 she has been with UNIDROIT, first as Research Officer, lastly as Principal Legal Officer, her main duties being Secretary to the Working Group for the Preparation of Principles of International Commercial Contracts, Secretary to the Study Group on Franchising, Secretary to the Committee of Governmental Experts on Franchising.She also collaborated on the project for the preparation of the ELI-Unidroit Model European Rules of Civil Procedure. She is currently Managing Editor of the Uniform Law Review and responsible for publications at UNIDROIT.

Myrte Thijssen

Myrte Thijssen started her career in the Legal Service of the Dutch Central Bank (Supervision and Regulation Department). From 2015-19 she worked in the Legal Service of the Single Resolution Board, providing advice in banking crises and dealing with litigation before the Appeal Panel and the Court of Justice of the European Union. She studied at the University of Amsterdam and New York University. She has taught Corporate Law and Law of Bank Crisis Management at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Bologna respectively. She has published several articles in the field of banking and financial law with a particular focus on bank resolution.

Marina Schneider

Marina Schneider is Principal Legal Officer and Treaty Depositary at UNIDROIT. She studied law at the University of Strasbourg (France) and Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne. She joined the UNIDROIT in 1987 and was involved in the elaboration and French versions of most UNIDROIT instruments since. She is in charge of the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects and of the UNESCO-UNIDROIT Model Provisions on State Ownership of Undiscovered Cultural Objects. She is the author of the Explanatory Report of the 1995 Convention and many articles on the Convention and other international instruments in the field. Ms Schneider is also responsible for the project on private collections and for the UNIDROIT Convention Academic Project (UCAP). She is member of the Board of the International Society for Research on Art and Cultural Heritage Law (ISCHAL).

Michelle Fung

Prior to joining UNIDROIT, Michelle worked in the Department of Justice of Hong Kong, China, for over 10 years, advising and representing Hong Kong, China in various aspects of international law. Prior to that she worked in an international law firm, assisting leading companies and financial institutions in complex disputes. She has an LLB from the University of Hong Kong and LLM from New York University.

Teresa Rodriguez de Las Heras Ballell

Professor of Commercial Law, Carlos III University of Madrid. Currently, Sir Roy Goode Scholar at UNIDROIT, Rome, 2021-2022. Chair of Excellence 2017-2018 at University of Oxford (Uc3m- Santander Program), affiliated to Harris Manchester College. Previously Distinguished Visiting Professor and fellow of a number of Academic Institutions. Arbitrator of Madrid Court of Arbitration. Member of ELI (European Law Institute) Council and Executive Committee. Member of the Expert Group of the European Commission on Liability and New Technologies and member of the Expert Group of the European Observatory of Platform Economy; the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law; the expert group of the Inclusive Global Legal Innovation Platform for Online Dispute Resolution – UNCITRAL and Hong Kong Department of Justice. Expert of the UNIDROIT Study Group on the MAC Protocol of the Cape Town Convention on International Interests. Delegate of Spain to UNIDROIT for the adoption of the Protocol, delegate of Spain in Working Group VI of UNCITRAL on secured transactions and in Working Group IV on Electronic Commerce. Member of UNIDROIT Working Groups on Enforcement and Warehouse Receipts.

William Brydie-Watson

William Brydie-Watson is an Australian lawyer who specialises in secured transactions law and private international law. Before joining UNIDROIT, William was a government lawyer in the Private International Law and International Arbitration section of the Australian Attorney-General’s Department, where he worked primarily on treaty negotiation and the implementation of private international law treaties in Australia. At UNIDROIT, he is primarily responsible for the implementation of the Mining, Agriculture and Construction (MAC Protocol) to the 2001 Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment and the development of a Model Law on Factoring. William also serves as UNIDROIT’s liaison with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and as manager of the Institute’s Scholarship and Internship Programme. Admitted to practice in New South Wales and the High Court of Australia, he has a Bachelor of Arts (honours), a Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Laws from the Australian National University. William also lectures on International Secured Transactions Law at the Eotvos Lorand Faculty of Law in Budapest.

Territory	Entry into force
Bermuda	01.01.2018
Cayman Islands	01.11.2015
Gibraltar	01.11.2015
Island of Guernsey	01.11.2015
Isle of Man	01.01.2018

Territory	Entry into force
Carribean part	01.10.2010
Aruba	01.09.2010
Curaçao	01.10.2010
Sint Maarten	01.10.2010

State	Entry into force
Alberta	01.06.1978
British Columbia	31.03.2014
Manitoba	02.09.1978
Newfoundland	02.09.1978
New Brunswick	05.12.1997
Nova Scotia	27.05.2001
Ontario	31.03.1978
Prince Edward Island	22.03.1995
Saskatchewan	08.10.1982

Territory	Entry into force
Bermuda	01.01.2018
Cayman Islands	01.11.2015
Gibraltar	01.11.2015
Island of Guernsey	01.11.2015
Isle of Man	01.01.2018

Territory	Entry into force
Carribean part	01.10.2010
Aruba	01.09.2010
Curaçao	01.10.2010
Sint Maarten	01.10.2010

Territory	Entry into force
Alberta	01.04.2013
British Columbia	01.04.2013
Manitoba	01.04.2013
New Brunswick	01.07.2016
Newfoundland and Labrador	01.04.2013
Northwest Territories	01.04.2013
Nova Scotia	01.04.2013
Nunavut	01.04.2013
Ontario	01.04.2013
Prince Edward Island	01.10.2014
Quebec	01.04.2013
Saskatchewan	01.04.2013
Yukon	01.10.2014

State	Entry into force
Alberta	01.06.1978
British Columbia	31.03.2014
Manitoba	02.09.1978
Newfoundland	02.09.1978
New Brunswick	05.12.1997
Nova Scotia	27.05.2001
Ontario	31.03.1978
Prince Edward Island	22.03.1995
Saskatchewan	22.03.1995
Yukon	06.01.2022

Launch of the Legal Guide on Agricultural Land Investment Contracts

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