The third edition of the IPLD 2024 has featured contributions from specialised experts, including judges, academics, practitioners from various countries, UNIDROIT governing bodies, UNIDROIT lawyers, and officials of other intergovernmental organisations cooperating with UNIDROIT. All lectures are conducted in English using a teaching methodology to foster active engagement among participants in a stimulating and dynamic environment. Through interactive workshops, case studies, and group discussions, participants can apply their knowledge to practical scenarios, thereby fostering a deep understanding of private international law and, more specifically, UNIDROIT’s legal instruments.
Dr Jonathan N. Agwe is IFAD’s Lead Regional Technical Specialist in Rural Finance, Markets, and Value Chains for the East and Southern Africa Region, with a cumulative work experience of over 37 years. Over the past 13 years, he provided cutting-edge technical advice to IFAD and its partners to conceive, design, implement and manage programmes and policies that promote sustainable access and use of innovative, inclusive rural financial services. Before joining IFAD, Jonathan worked for the World Bank for 13 years, following a 12-year career experience developing smallholder commercial agriculture in Cameroon. He holds a first degree in agriculture and rural development from Dschang University in Cameroon, an MSc in agricultural economics from Wye/Imperial College of London University, an MA in economic policy management from McGill University in Canada and a Doctor of Management (DM) degree in development finance and management from the University of Maryland University College, USA.
Priscila P. Andrade is a Legal Officer at the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT). She is a qualified lawyer, admitted to the Brazilian Bar (OAB/DF) and holds a PhD in International Law from the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (France), for which she was awarded a four-year scholarship from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Research (CNPq) and a one-year scholarship from the Eiffel Excellence Program. She also has a specialization in International Environmental Law from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and a Master’s Degree in International Law from the Centre University of Brasília – Brazil (UniCEUB). Before joining UNIDROIT, she worked as a legal consultant for the Economic Law and Policy Program of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and as a writer for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin reporting services (ENB/IISD). She was also an assistant professor (cultore della materia) at the Università di Pisa (Italy) and a Postdoctoral researcher at the Master in Law Program (UniCEUB).
Eugenio Borgese is the Training and Studies Officer for the Carabinieri Corps for Cultural Heritage Protection. He has been with the Arma dei Carabinieri since 2016 and previously worked for the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
William is an Australian lawyer working in the fields of international commercial law and private international law. He specializes in international secured transactions law and has primary responsibility for the Mining, Agricultural and Construction (MAC) Protocol to the Cape Town Convention and for preparing the UNIDROIT Model Law on Factoring. He also manages the Unidroit Foundation, a Dutch not-for-profit organization, and lectures on international secured transactions law at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. Previously, he was a Legal Officer of the Australian Attorney-General’s Department in the Private International Law section. He worked primarily on treaty negotiation and implementing private international law treaties in Australia.
Dr. Marek Dubovec is the Director of Law Reform Programs at the International Law Institute (ILI). For over 15 years, Marek has been working with international standard-setters, including UNCITRAL and UNIDROIT, to draft conventions, model laws, principles, and guides that assist States in modernizing their commercial law frameworks. Marek has produced several policy papers, reports, and other publications for international organizations, and he has authored and co-authored numerous articles and books, including the 2019 Secured Transactions Law Reform in Africa. Marek is an elected member of the American Law Institute and served as its representative on the Drafting Committee for the Uniform Commercial Code. Additionally, Marek is a Professor of Practice at the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law, and has served as a visiting scholar at the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies of the Bank of Japan and a visiting professor at the University of Puerto Rico, School of Law.
José Angelo Estrella Faria, the previous Secretary General of UNIDROIT, is the Principal Legal Officer and Head of the Legislative Branch of the International Trade Law Division, United Nations Office of Legal Affairs (Vienna), which functions as the substantive secretariat for the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).
Henry Gabriel is a Professor of Law at Elon University. He chaired the Working Group of the UNIDROIT Model Law on Factoring. He served four terms as a member of the UNIDROIT Governing Council, was a member of the Working Group and Chair of the Editorial Board of the 2010 UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, and chaired the UNIDROIT Working Group on the Legal Guide to Contract Farming. He has served as a United States delegate to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Working Group on Electronic Commerce for the last twenty years. He is an Elected and Life Member of the American Law Institute, a Fellow of the European Law Institute, and a Commissioner and Life Member of the American Uniform Law Commission.
Professor Louise Gullifer KC (Hon) FBA is Rouse Ball Professor of English Law at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. She is an associate member of 3VB, where she practised for many years, and a Bencher of Gray’s Inn. She is the editor of Goode and Gullifer on Legal Problems of Credit and Security. She has co-authored several books on commercial law and debt financing, including two co-edited volumes on intermediated securities. She is currently co-director of a project on digital assets. She is writing and editing a series of books on secured transactions law and reform worldwide, the most recent of which is a volume on Asia. She has acted as an expert witness in cases concerning set-off, intermediated securities and insolvency law. She was the founding director of the Commercial Law Centre at Harris Manchester College, executive director of the Secured Transaction Law Reform Project, and the Oxford academic lead of the Cape Town Convention Academic Project. She was the UK delegate to UNCITRAL (working group VI) during its work on secured transactions. She is one of the UK delegates to the UNIDROIT conferences at the Cape Town Convention and a member of many UNIDROIT working groups. She is a member of the International Insolvency Institute and the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law.
Hamza Hameed is a Pakistani lawyer and Senior Practice Manager for Space & Connectivity at Access Partnership in Singapore. He is a ITU Secretary-General’s Youth Advisory Board member and was Chair of the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) from 2022-2024. He supports governments and the private sector with policy, regulatory, and compliance-related matters in the space, satellite, and telecommunications industries. Before this, Hamza was part of the Secretariat of UNIDROIT in Rome. He led the effort towards establishing an international system of secured transactions law for the space sector under the Space Protocol of the Cape Town Convention and advising governments on blockchain and crypto law issues. Hamza holds an LLM from the International Institute for Air and Space Law at Leiden University. He teaches spacecraft financing at various universities and is a member of the International Institute for Space Law (IISL).
Mohamed A.M. Ismail, PhD (Cairo); FCIArb (London) is the vice president of the Conseil d’État and judge at the Supreme Administrative Court, Egypt. He is an arbitrator in international commercial disputes. He is a regionally and internationally renowned specialist in international contract law, international commercial contracts, state contracts, international investment arbitration, administrative law, public procurement and public-private partnerships, specifically concerning MENA jurisdictions. Dr Ismail is affiliated with several global legal bodies/organizations. He is a Member of the Comité Française De L’Arbitrage (Paris) and a member of the ‘Public Contracts in Legal Globalization’ as a global research network at Sciences Po University, Paris. He has been appointed as an expert to the Working Group of the ICC and UNIDROIT on International Investment Contracts. Dr Ismail was a visiting research fellow at Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg.
With 20 years of experience as attorney-at-law and legal counsel, Michele Ius is a Group Head of Contracts in Danieli & C SpA, one of the leaders in steel plant making, working alongside the executive team worldwide. Michele is responsible for negotiating, drafting, and managing national and international contracts, contractual risk management, and trade finance, and working with other financing project managers reporting to him. After the law degree (Cattolica, Milan), the political science bachelor (Università degli Studi di Siena) and the postgraduate course for International Business Lawyers (LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome), he delved into issues related to international trade. Michele regularly lectures at universities and postgraduate courses. He was a member of the INCOTERMS 2020® revision group and is now a member of several committees in ICC Italy and an ICC Italy Delegate in the ICC Global Customs Commission and Arbitration Commission.
Theodora Kostoula is a legal consultant for the International Institute of the unification of private law (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 PhD in International Law from the University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (France), a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the University Center of Brasília (Brazil), and a specialization 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). She was an assistant professor at the University of Pisa (Italy) and an associate professor at the Master in Law Program of the University Center of Brasília.
Webber Ndoro is an archaeologist and Zimbabwean heritage expert. He holds a BA in History from the University of Zimbabwe, an MSc in Archeology from the University of Cambridge, and an MSc in Architectural Conservation from the University of York. He completed his studies at Uppsala University, Sweden, earning a heritage management doctorate. Webber Ndoro joined the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe in 1985, where he was the Monuments Program Coordinator from 1992 to 1994. He then served as a lecturer in heritage management at the University of Zimbabwe, during which time he became aware of the 1972 Convention. He has also lectured on heritage management at the University of Bergen, Norway, and at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, where he is an honorary Professor. From 1998 to 2007, Webber Ndoro worked within ICCROM for the Africa 2009 program. He became Director of the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF) before returning to ICCROM in 2018 as Director General. He has published numerous articles and co-edited several books on conserving African heritage, including Managing Heritage in Africa: Who Cares? (Routledge, 2018) and Cultural Heritage Management in Africa: The Heritage of the Colonized (Routledge, 2022).
Mesela has over 20 years of experience in manufacturing and technical business development and is currently the CEO of Railroad Association. This rail industry body promotes and protects the common interest of persons, companies and organizations within or associated with the railway industry. This includes creating and harnessing expertise centres in modal choice and integration, railway safety, education and training, policy, environmental issues, and information and communication. She started her career as a quality control manager at Pro-Tech Galvanizers, was later headhunted by Stotko Engineering and has also represented Italian companies, AxCent and Forther. Mesela holds a BCom in Marketing and an LLB from UNISA, with various training certificates from the Institute of Directors. She also has a Certificate in the Art and Science of Negotiation Skills from the University of Witwatersrand.
Palma is an experienced lawyer and lecturer with a demonstrated history of working in the Government Administration and several international experiences as a Diplomat. Skilled in International Relations, International Law and especially International Economic Law, Policy Analysis and Legal Advice. Strongly educated professional with academic experience in International Trade/International Intellectual Property Law at the ‘High University Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies’ (ISUFI), University of Salento (Lecce, Italy) and the Catholic University of Sacred Heart (Piacenza and Rome, Italy), and a specific focus on International Trade Law, WTO Law, International Investments Law, International Intellectual Property Law, Geographical Indications Law and the Law of Innovation and Information Technology (including conflicts with other International law regimes as human rights, environment, cultural heritage).
Giulia Stella Previti, based in Rome, is a Legal Officer at the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT). Giulia is primarily responsible for UNIDROIT’s projects on the Legal Nature of Voluntary Carbon Credits, Digital Assets, and Private Law. Before 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 was admitted to the New York Bar and obtained her Juris Doctor from the New York University School of Law. She has a Master of Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor of Arts from University College London.
Teresa Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell is Professor of Commercial Law at University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain. She was a Sir Roy Goode Scholar at Unidroit in 2021–22. She is a member of the Unidroit Project on BPEE, a delegate of Spain at UNCITRAL for WG VI on secured transactions, WG IV on e-commerce, and WG I on Warehouse Receipts, and an Expert for UNCITRAL and Unidroit on digital economy projects. She is an arbitrator at the Spanish/Madrid Court of Arbitration. She is a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She is also a 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 a member of the European Law Institute (ELI) Executive Committee and Council and author of the ELI Guiding Principles on ADM. She was awarded a European Central Bank scholarship under the ECB Legal Program on Fintech Regulatory Challenges. Her past academic appointments include the James J Coleman Sr Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Tulane Law School, Academic Visitor at the University of Cambridge, Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney, Associate Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore, Marie Curie Fellow at Centre of European Law and Politics (Germany), and Chair of Excellence at Oxford University.
Giacomo assists Italian and foreign clients in international and domestic arbitration proceedings, focusing on construction, international commercial contracts, Oil & Gas, renewables, and corporate and post-M&A disputes. He has gained significant experience in investment arbitration, as well. He has been appointed as an expert by the Italian Republic in several investment arbitration proceedings under the rules of ICSID and SCC, as well as by multinational corporations before U.S. State and Federal courts. He assists clients on Private and Commercial Law matters before Italian State courts, and he is often requested to advise on international commercial contracts and render legal opinions. Giacomo is the Co-Editor of the ICCA project “Does a Right to a Physical Hearing Exist in International Arbitration?”, Member of the Board and Co-Coordinator of the Focus Group “Construction Arbitration” of the Italian Association for Arbitration, and past Co-Chair of ArbIt (Italian Forum on International Arbitration and ADR).
Professor Stadler obtained her PhD from the University of Konstanz, Germany, and qualified as a professor at the University of Freiburg, Germany, in 1993. She is an expert in German, European, and International civil procedure law. Her research has focused on collective redress since the early 2000s. From 2011 to 2015, she held a part-time chair position in comparative mass litigation at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, School of Law. She has published more than 80 articles on the topic of collective redress and third-party litigation funding and has edited several books on the topic with international teams of authors. She has been a member of several Dutch foundations’ supervisory boards that enforce consumer rights in mass harm events. Professor Stadler is president of the German Association of Civil Procedural Law and co-editor of the German legal periodical “Juristenzeitung” (JZ) and the “Journal of Civil Procedure – International”. She was a guest professor at Kyoto University, Japan (2023) and Tongji University Shanghai (since 2017), is a member of the Joint Research Institute of Tongji University, Shanghai, HU Berlin & University of Konstanz („Sino-German International Economic Law Institute“) and is a member of the „Center for Studies on Justice“ der Fudan Law School, Shanghai.
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 served with the Secretariat for Legal Affairs at the Organization of American States (OAS) as the Senior Legal Officer responsible for private international law. Also, she served 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 food security and sustainable agriculture.
Myrte Thijssenstarted 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 banking and financial law articles focusing on bank resolution.
Teemu Viinikainen has been an international legal consultant with the Development Law Service of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) since 2016. His wide-ranging interests and responsibilities include contract farming, antimicrobial resistance, food loss and waste, food fraud, and general food, animal, and plant health and production topics. Before his services at FAO, he also worked in the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) legal office and the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT). He holds a Master of Laws from the University of Turku.
Dr Philine Wehling is responsible for UNIDROIT’s work on corporate sustainability due diligence in global value chains. She is also responsible for implementing the UNCITRAL/UNIDROIT Model Law on Warehouse Receipts. She advises on other agricultural trade and development instruments and the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts. Since 2020, she has regularly lectured on international commercial law at the Master’s in Law Programme at the International Training Centre of the ILO. Before joining UNIDROIT in 2019, she worked as a Legal Advisor at the UNFAO Legal Office in Rome for about eight years. She advised member countries on legal and institutional aspects of trade in agro-food products, sustainable agricultural development, and responsible natural resources management, and managed and implemented normative and project (field) work in over 20 countries. Philine is admitted to the German Bar and holds a PhD in International Law with highest honours from Heidelberg University, completed at the Max-Planck-Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, for which she was awarded the 2018 Prize for Excellence in Research of the Margot-und-Friedrich-Becke Stiftung zu Heidelberg. She holds a Master’s Degree in Law from Hamburg University and a Law Degree from Passau University. She completed undergraduate studies in Arabic Literature and Politics at Damascus University and studies in French Culture at the University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Jeffrey Wool is a senior research fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, a Fellow at the Commercial Law Centre, and an affiliate of the Law Faculty, University of Oxford. Jeffrey was the second instructor of the now globally-instructed course transnational commercial law (exploring its phenomenon, dynamics, and elements). He is a senior advisor to UNIDROIT and president of the UNIDROIT Foundation. He was Condon-Falknor Professor of Global Business Law at the University of Washington School of Law from 2011-2019, where he was the founding co-director of its global business law institute and developed a new course on international business compliance. He is the secretary general of the Aviation Working Group. This not-for-profit international industry group works on developing policies, regulations and rules designed to facilitate advanced international aviation financing and leasing. Jeffrey acts in that capacity on secondment from Blakes, a leading international law firm. Jeffrey coordinates all AWG activity and has been doing so since its inception in 1994.
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.
