Mr. Chairman,
I have the honour to speak on behalf of the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and my own country Norway.
The Nordic countries welcome the report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) on the work of its fortieth session, (A/62/17 Part I). We also highly appreciate the coordination efforts made by the Commission in order to maintain close cooperation with other international organs and organizations active in the field of international trade law. The reported achievements verify that extended cooperation and awareness in the field of International Trade Law is generally seen as key to success in global trade and economic development.
The Commission, during the last session, obtained significant results in the field of secured transactions. A major part of the draft UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Secured transactions was adopted. An instrument that promotes availability of low-cost secured credit is a major achievement and sound secured transactions laws can have significant economic benefits for States that adopt them. The Nordic countries are anxiously awaiting the adoption of the remaining parts of the draft legislative guide in Vienna in December this year.
The UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules are widely recognized as a very successful text. However, they have not been amended since their adoption in 1976. The ongoing work to modernize the Rules and to promote greater efficiency in arbitral proceedings is highly supported by the Nordic countries.
Important steps forward have also been taken in the work on the revision of the Model Law on Procurement of Goods, Construction and Services. In our view, it is important that the Model Law reflects new procurement practices and techniques, in particular those resulting from the use of electronic communications in public procurement. Furthermore, also the working group on transport made good progress with respect to the development of a new international transport convention with multi-modal application.
With respect to the working group on insolvency law, we note with appreciation the progress that has been made regarding the consideration of the treatment of corporate groups in insolvency. As the Insolvency Guide and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency are well-working instruments, it is in our view wise to focus on the complementation of these texts, not their replacement.
Last but not least, we would like to thank the Commission for hosting the Modern Law for Global Commerce conference in celebration of the 40th annual session of UNCITRAL. Within the field of international trade law the rapid development of global trade and commerce necessitates a modern and innovative approach towards international lawmaking. The conference provided important inputs in this respect, highlighting and providing analyses on a series of complex issues within the sphere of international trade law. The discussions on general topics such as the process and methods of international rule-making as well as more specific topics such as secured transactions, corporate governance, insolvency, the future of contract law harmonisation, e-commerce, procurement techniques and commercial dispute settlement, all provided important inputs for the future work of the Commission.
In concluding, Mr Chairman, we extend our thanks to the members of the Commission and its secretariat for the excellent results obtained during this years’ first session and we look forward to continuing to contribute to the further development of international trade law at a later stage.
Thank you, Mr Chairman.