Convention relating to a Uniform Law on the Formation of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods
(The Hague, 1 July 1964)
The States signatory to the present Convention,
Desiring to establish a uniform law on the formation of contracts for the international sale of goods,
Have resolved to conclude a convention to this effect and have agreed upon the following provisions:
Article I
1. Each Contracting State undertakes to incorporate into its own legislation, in accordance with its constitutional procedure, not later than the date of the entry into force of the present Convention in respect of that State, the Uniform Law on the Formation of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (hereinafter referred to as “the Uniform Law”) forming Annex I to the present Convention.
2. Each Contracting State may incorporate the Uniform Law into its own legislation either in one of the authentic texts or in a translation into its own language or languages.
3. Each Contracting State which is also a Contracting State to the Convention dated the 1st day of July 1964 relating to a Uniform Law on the International Sale of Goods shall incorporate into its legislation the Articles set forth in Annex II to the present Convention in place of Articles 1 and 4 as set forth in Annex I to the present Convention.
4. Each Contracting State shall communicate to the Government of the Netherlands the texts which it has incorporated into its legislation to give effect to the present Convention.
Article II
1. Two or more Contracting States may declare that they agree not to consider themselves as different States for the purpose of the requirements as to place of business or habitual residence laid down in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article l of the Uniform Law, because they apply to the formation of contracts of sale which in the absence of such a declaration would be governed by the Uniform Law the same or closely related legal rules.
2. Any Contracting State may declare that it does not consider one or more non-Contracting States as different States from itself for the purpose of the requirements of the Uniform Law which are referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article, because such States apply to the formation of contracts of sale which in the absence of such a declaration would be governed by the Uniform Law legal rules which are the same as or closely related to its own.
3. If a State which is the object of a declaration made under paragraph 2 of this Article subsequently ratifies or accedes to the present Convention, the declaration shall remain in effect unless the ratifying or acceding State declares that it cannot accept it.
4. Declarations under paragraphs 1, 2 or 3 of this Article may be made by the State concerned at the time of the deposit of its instrument of ratification of or accession to the present Convention or at any time thereafter and shall be addressed to the Government of the Netherlands. The declaration shall take effect three months after the date of its receipt by the Government of the Netherlands or, if at the end of this period the present Convention has not yet entered into force in respect of the State concerned, at the date of such entry into force.
Article III
By way of derogation from Article 1 of the Uniform Law, any State may, at the time of the deposit of its instrument of ratification of or accession to the present Convention, declare by a notification addressed to the Government of the Netherlands that it will apply the Uniform Law only if each of the parties to the contract of sale has his place of business or, if he has no place of business, his habitual residence in the territory of a different Contracting State, and in consequence may insert the word “Contracting” before the word “States” where the latter word first occurs in paragraph 1 of Article 1 of the Uniform Law.
Article IV
1. Any State which has previously ratified or acceded to one or more Conventions on conflict of laws in respect of the formation of contracts for the international sale of goods may, at the time of the deposit of its instrument of ratification of or accession to the present Convention, declare by a notification addressed to the Government of the Netherlands that it will apply the Uniform Law in cases governed by one of those previous Conventions only if that Convention itself requires the application of the Uniform Law.
2. Any State which makes a declaration under paragraph 1 of this Article, shall inform the Government of the Netherlands of the Convention or the Conventions referred to in that declaration.
Article V
Any State which has made a declaration under paragraphs 1 or 2 of Article II, Article III, or Article IV of the present Convention may withdraw it at any time by a notification addressed to the Government of the Netherlands. Such withdrawal shall take effect three months after the date of the receipt of the notification by the Government of the Netherlands and, in the case of a declaration made under paragraph 1 of Article II, shall also render inoperative, as from the date when the withdrawal takes effect any reciprocal declaration made by another State.
Article VI
1. The present Convention shall remain open for signature until the 31st day of December 1965 by the States represented at the Hague Conference of 1964 on the Unification of Law governing the International Sale of Goods.
2. The present Convention shall be ratified.
3. The instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the Government of the Netherlands.
Article VII
1. The present Convention shall be open to accession by all States members of the United Nations or any of its Specialized Agencies.
2. The instruments of accession shall be deposited with the government of the Netherlands.
Article VIII
1. The present Convention shall come into force six months after the date of the deposit of the fifth instrument of ratification or accession.
2. In respect of a State that ratifies or accedes to the present Convention after the deposit of the fifth instrument of ratification or accession, the Convention shall come into force six months after the date of the deposit of its instrument of ratification or accession.
Article IX
Each Contracting State shall apply the provisions incorporated into its legislation in pursuance of the present Convention to offers, replies and acceptances to which the Uniform Law applies and which are made on or after the date of the entry into force of the Convention in respect of that State.
Article X
1. Any Contracting State may denounce the present Convention by notifying the Government of the Netherlands to that effect.
2. The denunciation shall take effect twelve months after receipt of the notification by the Government of the Netherlands.
Article XI
1. Any State may, at the time of the deposit of its instrument of ratification or accession or at any time thereafter, declare, by means of a notification addressed to the Government of the Netherlands, that the present Convention shall be applicable to all or any of the territories for whose international relations it is responsible. Such a declaration shall take effect six months after the date of receipt of the notification by the Government of the Netherlands, or, if at the end of that period the Convention has not yet come into force, from the date of its entry into force.
2. Any Contracting State which has made a declaration pursuant to paragraph 1 of this Article may, in accordance with Article X, denounce the Convention in respect of all or any of the territories concerned.
Article XII
1. After the present Convention has been in force for three years, any Contracting State may, by a notification addressed to the Government of the Netherlands, request the convening of a conference for the purpose of revising the Convention or its Annexes. Notice of this request shall be given to all Contracting States by the Government of the Netherlands which shall convene a conference for the purpose of such revision if, within a period of six months from the date of such notice, at least one quarter of the Contracting States notify the said Government of their agreement with the request.
2. States invited to the conference, other than Contracting States, shall have the status of observers unless the Contracting States at the conference decide otherwise by a majority vote. Observers shall have all rights of participation except that of voting.
3. The Government of the Netherlands shall request all States invited to the conference to submit such proposals as they may wish the conference to examine. The Government of the Netherlands shall notify all States invited of the provisional agenda for the conference and of the texts of all the proposals which have been submitted.
4. The Government of the Netherlands shall communicate to the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law the proposals concerning revision submitted to it in accordance with paragraph 3 of this Article.
Article XIII
The Government of the Netherlands shall notify the Signatory and Acceding States and the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law of:
(a) the communications received in accordance with paragraph 4 of Article I;
(b) the declarations and notifications made in accordance with Articles II, III IV and V;
(c) the ratifications and accessions deposited in accordance with Articles VI and VII;
(d) the dates on which this Convention will come into force in accordance with Article VIII;
(e) the denunciations received in accordance with Article X;
(f) the notifications received in accordance with Article XI.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned, duly authorized, have signed the present Convention.
DONE at THE HAGUE, this first day of July one thousand nine hundred and sixty-four, in the French and English languages, both texts being equally authentic.
The original of the present Convention shall be deposited with the Government of the Netherlands, which shall furnish certified copies to each of the Signatory and Acceding States and to the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law.
ANNEX I
Uniform Law on the Formation of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods
Article 1
1. The present Law shall apply to the formation of contracts of sale of goods entered into by parties whose places of business are in the territories of different States, in each of the following cases:
(a) where the offer or the reply relates to goods which are in the course of carriage or will be carried from the territory of one State to the territory of another;
(b) where the acts constituting the offer and the acceptance are effected in the territories of different States;
(c) where delivery of the goods is to be made in the territory of a State other than that within whose territory the acts constituting the offer and the acceptance are effected.
2. Where a party does not have a place of business, reference shall be made to his habitual residence.
3. The application of the present Law shall not depend on the nationality of the parties.
4. Offer and acceptance shall be considered to be effected in the territory of the same State only if the letters, telegrams or other documentary communications which contain them are sent and received in the territory of that State.
5. For the purpose of determining whether the parties have their places of business or habitual residences in “different States”, any two or more States shall not be considered to be “different States” if a valid declaration to that effect made under Article II of the Convention dated the 1st day of July 1964 relating to a Uniform Law on the Formation of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods is in force in respect of them.
6. The present Law shall not apply to the formation of contracts of sale:
(a) of stocks, shares, investment securities, negotiable instruments or money;
(b) of any ship, vessel or aircraft, which is or will be subject to registration;
(c) of electricity;
(d) by authority of law or on execution or distress.
7. Contracts for the supply of goods to be manufactured or produced shall be considered to be sales within the meaning of the present Law, unless the party who orders the goods undertakes to supply an essential and substantial part of the materials necessary for such manufacture or production.
8. The present Law shall apply regardless of the commercial or civil character of the parties or of the contracts to be concluded.
9. Rules of private international law shall be excluded for the purpose of the application of the present Law, subject to any provision to the contrary in the said Law.
Article 2
1. The provisions of the following Articles shall apply except to the extent that it appears from the preliminary negotiations, the offer, the reply, the practices which the parties have established between themselves or usage, that other rules apply.
2. However, a term of the offer stipulating that silence shall amount to acceptance is invalid.
Article 3
An offer or an acceptance need not be evidenced by writing and shall not be subject to any other requirement as to form. In particular, they may be proved by means of witnesses.
Article 4
1. The communication which one person addresses to one or more specific persons with the object of concluding a contract of sale shall not constitute an offer unless it is sufficiently definite to permit the conclusion of the contract by acceptance and indicates the intention of the offeror to be bound.
2. This communication may be interpreted by reference to and supplemented by the preliminary negotiations, any practices which the parties have established between themselves, usage and any applicable legal rules for contracts of sale.
Article 5
1. The offer shall not bind the offeror until it has been communicated to the offeree; it shall lapse if its withdrawal is communicated to the offeree before or at the same time as the offer.
2. After an offer has been communicated to the offeree it can be revoked unless the revocation is not made in good faith or in conformity with fair dealing or unless the offer states a fixed time for acceptance or otherwise indicates that it is firm or irrevocable.
3. An indication that the offer is firm or irrevocable may be express or implied from the circumstances, the preliminary negotiations, any practices which the parties have established between themselves or usage.
4. A revocation of an offer shall only have effect if it has been communicated to the offeree before he has despatched his acceptance or has done any act treated as acceptance under paragraph 2 of Article 6.
Article 6
1. Acceptance of an offer consists of a declaration communicated by any means whatsoever to the offeror.
2. Acceptance may also consist of the despatch of the goods or of the price or of any other act which may be considered to be equivalent to the declaration referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article either by virtue of the offer or as a result of practices which the parties have established between themselves or usage.
Article 7
1. An acceptance containing additions, limitations or other modifications shall be a rejection of the offer and shall constitute a counter-offer.
2. However, a reply to an offer which purports to be an acceptance but which contains additional or different terms which do not materially alter the terms of the offer shall constitute an acceptance unless the offeror promptly objects to the discrepancy; if he does not so object, the terms of the contract shall be the terms of the offer with the modifications contained in the acceptance.
Article 8
1. A declaration of acceptance of an offer shall have effect only if it is communicated to the offeror within the time he has fixed or, if no such time is fixed, within a reasonable time, due account being taken of the circumstances of the transaction, including the rapidity of the means of communication employed by the offeror, and usage. In the case of an oral offer, the acceptance shall be immediate, if the circumstances do not show that the offeree shall have time for reflection.
2. If a time for acceptance is fixed by an offeror in a letter or in telegram, it shall be presumed to begin to run from the day the letter was dated or the hour of the day the telegram was handed in for despatch.
3. If an acceptance consists of an act referred to in paragraph 2 of Article 6, the act shall have effect only if it is done within the period laid down in paragraph 1 of the present Article.
Article 9
1. If the acceptance is late, the offeror may nevertheless consider it to have arrived in due time on condition that he promptly so informs the acceptor orally or by despatch of a notice.
2. If, however, the acceptance is communicated late, it shall be considered to have been communicated in due time, if the letter or document which contains the acceptance shows that it has been sent in such circumstances that if its transmission had been normal it would have been communicated in due time, this provision shall not however apply if the offeror has promptly informed the acceptor orally or by despatch of a notice that he considers his offer as having lapsed.
Article 10
An acceptance cannot be revoked except by a revocation which is communicated to the offeror before or at the same time as the acceptance.
Article 11
The formation of the contract is not affected by the death of one of the parties or by his becoming incapable of contracting before acceptance unless the contrary results from the intention of the parties, usage or the nature of the transaction.
Article 12
1. For the purposes of the present Law, the expression “to be communicated” means to be delivered at the address of the person to whom the communication is directed.
2. Communications provided for by the present Law shall be made by the means usual in the circumstances.
Article 13
1. Usage means any practice or method of dealing, which reasonable persons in the same situation as the parties usually consider to be applicable to the formation of their contract.
2. Where expressions, provisions or forms of contract commonly used in commercial practice are employed, they shall be interpreted according to the meaning usually given to them in the trade concerned.
ANNEX II
Article 1
The present Law shall apply to the formation of contracts of sale of goods which, if they were concluded, would be governed by the Uniform Law on the International Sale of Goods.
Article 4
1. The communication which one person addresses to one or more specific persons with the object of concluding a contract of sale shall not constitute an offer unless it is sufficiently definite to permit the conclusion of the contract by acceptance and indicates the intention of the offeror to be bound.
2. This communication may be interpreted by reference to and supplemented by the preliminary negotiations, any practices which the parties have established between themselves, usage and the provisions of the Uniform Law on the International Sale of Goods.
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).
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.
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 Cha
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.
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
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
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.
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.
P
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.
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.
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.
