Report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on the Work of Its 48th Session

A/RES/70/115View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 81 Report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on the work of its 48th session, published in 2015.

What else is in this group?

29 documents · 1988–2025

Newer documents in this group exist (latest: 2025).

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2025	A/RES/80/161	Report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on the work of its 58th session	2,747	–
2024	A/RES/79/117	Report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on the work of its 57th session	3,108	–
2023	A/RES/78/103	Report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on the work of its 56th session	2,799	–
2022	A/RES/77/99	Report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on the work of its 55th session	2,723	–
2021	A/RES/76/229	Report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on the work of its 54th session	3,228	–

This group bundles related documents that are not individually ordered.

What subjects does this mandate have?

7 subjects

Developing Countries Information Dissemination International Trade Law Law Reform Law Reports and Digests Rule of Law Technical Cooperation

What’s in this document?

26 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law;Error: Reference source not found

Notes with approval the view of the Commission that the repository of published information under the Rules on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration³ should be fully operational as soon as possible, as the repository constituted a central feature both of the Rules on Transparency and of the United Nations Convention on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration (Mauritius Convention on Transparency)⁴ by providing a consolidated, transparent and easily accessible global case record database for all investor-State arbitrations conducted pursuant to the Rules on Transparency and the Convention, and in this regard requests the Secretary-General to establish and operate through the secretariat of the Commission the repository of published information under the Rules on Transparency, in accordance with article 8 of the Rules, initially as a pilot project until the end of 2016, to be funded entirely by voluntary contributions;

³Ibid., Sixty-eighth Session, Supplement No. 17 (A/68/17), annex I.

⁴Resolution 69/116, annex.

Takes note with interest of the decisions taken by the Commission as regards its future work and the progress made by the Commission in its work in the areas of arbitration and conciliation, online dispute resolution, electronic commerce, insolvency law, security interests and international trade law aimed at reducing the legal obstacles faced by micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises throughout their life cycle, and encourages the Commission to continue to move forward efficiently to achieve tangible work outcomes;

Notes with appreciation the projects of the Commission aimed at promoting the uniform and effective application of the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention), done at New York on 10 June 1958,⁵ including the preparation of a guide entitled “UNCITRAL Secretariat Guide on the New York Convention”, in close cooperation with international experts;⁶

⁵United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 330, No. 4739.

⁶See Official Records of the General Assembly, Sixty-eighth Session, Supplement No. 17 (A/68/17), chap. III, sect. E; and ibid., Sixty-ninth Session, Supplement No. 17 (A/69/17), para. 117.

Endorses the efforts and initiatives of the Commission, as the core legal body within the United Nations system in the field of international trade law, aimed at increasing coordination of and cooperation on legal activities of international and regional organizations active in the field of international trade law and at promoting the rule of law at the national and international levels in this field, and in this regard appeals to relevant international and regional organizations to coordinate their legal activities with those of the Commission, to avoid duplication of efforts and to promote efficiency, consistency and coherence in the modernization and harmonization of international trade law;

Reaffirms the importance, in particular for developing countries, of the work of the Commission concerned with technical cooperation and assistance in the field of international trade law reform and development, and in this connection:

Welcomes the initiatives of the Commission towards expanding, through its secretariat, its technical cooperation and assistance programme, and in that respect encourages the Secretary-General to seek partnerships with State and non-State actors to increase awareness about the work of the Commission and facilitate the effective implementation of legal standards resulting from its work;

Expresses its appreciation to the Commission for carrying out technical cooperation and assistance activities and for providing assistance with legislative drafting in the field of international trade law, and draws the attention of the Secretary-General to the limited resources that are made available in this field;

Expresses its appreciation to the Governments whose contributions enabled the technical cooperation and assistance activities to take place, and appeals to Governments, the relevant bodies of the United Nations system, organizations, institutions and individuals to make voluntary contributions to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Trust Fund for Symposia and, where appropriate, for the financing of special projects and otherwise to assist the secretariat of the Commission in carrying out technical cooperation and assistance activities, in particular in developing countries;

Reiterates its appeal to the United Nations Development Programme and other bodies responsible for development assistance, such as the World Bank and regional development banks, as well as to Governments in their bilateral aid programmes, to support the technical cooperation and assistance programme of the Commission and to cooperate with the Commission and coordinate their activities with those of the Commission in the light of the relevance and importance of the work and programmes of the Commission for the promotion of the rule of law at the national and international levels and for the implementation of the international development agenda, including the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;⁷

⁷Resolution 70/1.

Recalls its resolutions stressing the need to strengthen support to Member States, upon their request, in the domestic implementation of their respective international obligations through enhanced technical assistance and capacity-building, welcomes the efforts of the Secretary-General to ensure greater coordination and coherence among United Nations entities and with donors and recipients, and takes note of the ongoing discussion in the Commission of ways to strengthen support to Member States, upon their request, in the implementation of sound commercial law reforms;

Recalls the importance of adherence to the rules of procedure and methods of work of the Commission, including transparent and inclusive deliberations, taking into account the summary of conclusions as reproduced in annex III to the report on the work of its forty-third session,⁸ requests the Secretariat to issue, prior to meetings of the Commission and of its working groups, a reminder of those rules of procedure and methods of work with a view to ensuring the high quality of the work of the Commission and encouraging the assessment of its instruments, and in this regard recalls its previous resolutions related to this matter;

⁸See Official Records of the General Assembly, Sixty-fifth Session, Supplement No. 17 (A/65/17).

Welcomes the activities of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific, in the Republic of Korea, towards reaching out and providing technical assistance with international trade law reforms to developing countries in the region, notes with satisfaction expressions of interest from other States in hosting regional centres of the Commission, and requests the Secretary-General to keep the General Assembly informed of developments regarding the establishment of regional centres, in particular their funding and budgetary situation;⁹

⁹Ibid., Sixty-eighth Session, Supplement No. 17 (A/68/17), chap. XIII.

Appeals to Governments, the relevant bodies of the United Nations system, organizations, institutions and individuals to make voluntary contributions to the Trust Fund established to provide travel assistance to developing countries that are members of the Commission, at their request and in consultation with the Secretary-General, in order to enable renewal of the provision of that assistance and to increase expert representation from developing countries at sessions of the Commission and its working groups, necessary to build local expertise and capacities in those countries to put in place a regulatory and enabling environment for business, trade and investment;

Decides, in order to ensure full participation of all Member States in the sessions of the Commission and its working groups, to continue, in the competent Main Committee during the seventieth session of the General Assembly, its consideration of granting travel assistance to the least developed countries that are members of the Commission, at their request and in consultation with the Secretary-General;

Endorses the conviction of the Commission that the implementation and effective use of modern private law standards in international trade are essential for advancing good governance, sustained economic development and the eradication of poverty and hunger and that the promotion of the rule of law in commercial relations should be an integral part of the broader agenda of the United Nations to promote the rule of law at the national and international levels, including through the Rule of Law Coordination and Resource Group, supported by the Rule of Law Unit in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General;

Notes the rule of law panel discussion held at the forty-eighth session of the Commission and the comments transmitted by the Commission highlighting its role in promoting the rule of law, in particular the role of the multilateral treaty processes of the Commission in promoting and advancing the rule of law in the field of international trade law,¹⁰ pursuant to paragraph 17 of General Assembly resolution 69/123 of 10 December 2014;

¹⁰Ibid., Seventieth Session, Supplement No. 17 (A/70/17), chap. XV.

Notes with satisfaction that, in paragraph 8 of the declaration of the high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the rule of law at the national and international levels, adopted by consensus as resolution 67/1 of 24 September 2012, Member States recognized the importance of fair, stable and predictable legal frameworks for generating inclusive, sustainable and equitable development, economic growth and employment, generating investment and facilitating entrepreneurship and, in this regard, commended the work of the Commission in modernizing and harmonizing international trade law and that, in paragraph 7 of the declaration, Member States expressed their conviction that the rule of law and development were strongly interrelated and mutually reinforcing;

Also notes with satisfaction that, in paragraph 89 of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, adopted by the General Assembly by consensus as resolution 69/313 of 27 July 2015, States endorsed the efforts and initiatives of the Commission, as the core legal body within the United Nations system in the field of international trade law, aimed at increasing coordination of and cooperation on legal activities of international and regional organizations active in the field of international trade law and at promoting the rule of law at the national and international levels in this field;

Reiterates its request to the Secretary-General, in conformity with resolutions of the General Assembly on documentation-related matters,¹¹ which, in particular, emphasize that any invitation to limit, where appropriate, the length of documents should not adversely affect either the quality of the presentation or the substance of the documents, to bear in mind the particular characteristics of the mandate and functions of the Commission in the progressive development and codification of international trade law when implementing page limits with respect to the documentation of the Commission;¹²

¹¹Resolutions 52/214, sect. B, 57/283 B, sect. III, and 58/250, sect. III.

¹²Resolutions 59/39, para. 9, and 65/21, para. 18; see also Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-ninth Session, Supplement No. 17 (A/59/17), paras. 124–128.

Requests the Secretary-General to continue the publication of Commission standards and the provision of summary records of the meetings of the Commission, including committees of the whole established by the Commission for the duration of its annual session, relating to the formulation of normative texts, and takes note of the Commission’s decision to continue the trial use of digital recordings, in parallel with summary records where applicable, with a view to assessing the experience of using digital recordings and, on the basis of that assessment, taking a decision at a future session regarding the possible replacement of summary records by digital recordings;¹³

¹³Official Records of the General Assembly, Sixty-ninth Session, Supplement No. 17 (A/69/17), para. 276.

Recalls paragraph 48 of its resolution 66/246 of 24 December 2011 regarding the rotation scheme of meetings between Vienna and New York;

Stresses the importance of promoting the use of texts emanating from the work of the Commission for the global unification and harmonization of international trade law, and to this end urges States that have not yet done so to consider signing, ratifying or acceding to conventions, enacting model laws and encouraging the use of other relevant texts;

Notes with appreciation the work of the Secretariat on the system for the collection and dissemination of case law on Commission texts in the six official languages of the United Nations (the CLOUT system), notes the resource-intensive nature of the system, acknowledges the need for further resources to sustain and expand it, and in this regard welcomes efforts by the Secretariat towards building partnerships with interested institutions, and appeals to Governments, the relevant bodies of the United Nations system, organizations, institutions and individuals to assist the secretariat of the Commission in raising awareness as to the availability and usefulness of the CLOUT system in professional, academic and judiciary circles and in securing the funding required for the coordination and expansion of the system and the establishment, within the secretariat of the Commission, of a pillar focused on the promotion of ways and means of interpreting Commission texts in a uniform manner;

Welcomes the continued work of the Secretariat on digests of case law related to Commission texts, including their wide dissemination, as well as the continuing increase in the number of abstracts available through the CLOUT system, in view of the role of the digests and the CLOUT system as important tools for the promotion of the uniform interpretation of international trade law, in particular by building local capacity of judges, arbitrators and other legal practitioners to interpret those standards in the light of their international character and the need to promote uniformity in their application and the observance of good faith in international trade;

Recalls its resolutions affirming the importance of high-quality, user-friendly and cost-effective United Nations websites and the need for their multilingual development, maintenance and enrichment,¹⁴ commends the fact that the website of the Commission is published in the six official languages of the United Nations, and welcomes the continuous efforts of the Commission to maintain and improve its website, including by developing new social media features, in accordance with the applicable guidelines.¹⁵

¹⁴Resolutions 52/214, sect. C, para. 3; 55/222, sect. III, para. 12; 56/64 B, sect. X; 57/130 B, sect. X; 58/101 B, sect. V, paras. 61–76; 59/126 B, sect. V, paras. 76–95; 60/109 B, sect. IV, paras. 66–80; and 61/121 B, sect. IV, paras. 65–77.

¹⁵Resolution 63/120, para. 20.

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