On 6-7 May 2024, UNIDROIT hosted an international conference to mark the 30th anniversary of one of its most well-known instruments: the UNIDROIT Principles on International Commercial Contracts (UPICC). Governing Council members and other experts, many of whom participated firsthand in the drafting of the Principles themselves, gathered in Rome for this two-day event, opened by UNIDROIT President Professor Maria Chiara Malaguti, Secretary-General Professor Ignacio Tirado. Deputy Secretary General Professor Anna Veneziano introduced the keynote speech delivered by Professor Michael Joachim Bonell, who opened the first day and touched upon several points that would feed into the discussions in the following panels .
The first panel entitled “The UPICC in context: historical roots and synergies with other international instruments” was chaired by Professor Don Wallace and featured contributions by Professor Pilar Perales Viscasillas (with respect to the CISG) and Stefan Vogenauer (with respect to the Tripartite Legal Guide), and benefitted from a discussion led by Professor Fabio Bortolotti, who touched on the issues addressed in the ICC Model Clauses.
A round table followed on the use of the UPICC in contract drafting, chaired by Professor Giuditta Cordero-Moss, featuring renowned practitioners and private sector representatives such as arbitrator Mr Christopher Seppälä, Prof, Eckart Brödermann, and in house counsels of the Danieli Group and the EniPlenitude group respectively, Mr Michele Ius and Mr Pietro Galizzi.
The first day concluded with a panel addressing the Practical perspectives on the role of the UPICC in arbitration chaired by President Malaguti, featuring the contributions of Professor Lauro Gama Jr, Professor Christina Ramberg, and Mr Dominic Spenser Underhill.
Day 2 of the Conference opened by addressing the use of the UPICC to develop new uniform law instruments, chaired by ad honorem Governing Council member Professor Henry Gabriel, and featuring Professor Helmut Heiss on the Principles of Reinsurance Contract Law (PRICL), Professor José Antonio Moreno Rodríguez on the UPICC and Investment Contracts, and Professor Ekaterina Pannebakker on Using the UPICC to Draft Sustainable Development Clauses in International Commercial Contracts
What followed was a panel which reflected on the impact of the UPICC on, and interaction with, domestic law and regional integration chaired by Dr Philine Wehling, featuring Professor Wenhua JI on the influence of the UPICC on the Chinese Civil Code, Professor Eesa Fredericks on South African Law, and Professor Nisreen Mahasneh on Islamic Law, as well as the instrument’s interaction with regional and national ESG supply chain regulations by Professor Ulrich Schroeter.
The UPICC as applicable law or background law and applications by national courts was a topic addressed by a panel chaired by the Deputy Secretary-General, providing an overview on the use of the UPICC in domestic courts by Professor Alejandro Garro, a focus on the choice of the Principles as the proper law of international commercial contracts in Latin America by Professor Maria Ignacia Vial Undurraga, as well as a focus on the UPICC and English Courts offered by Mr Rupert Reece.
All panels were enriched by lively discussions with participants. The conclusions of the conference on ways of shaping the future of the Principles were drawn in a final panel chaired by Secretary-General who initiated a debate with the chairs of all seven panels of the conference and the audience on ideas and impulses for ways forward. Former doyen of the Governing Council Professor Arthur Hartkamp then provided the concluding remarks.
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’.
rtered 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.
rofessor Ignacio Tirado was appointed Secretary-General by the Governing Council at its 97th 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.
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.
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).
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 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.