Ignacio Tirado
Secretary-General of the International Institute for the Unification of
Private Law (UNIDROIT)
President Zhang Jun, Executive Vice-President Deng Xiuming,
Distinguished Members of the International Commercial Expert Committee,
Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
Greetings from Rome.
I am very sorry I can not be there in person, as I would have very much liked to.
It is a great honour to join you today, even remotely, for the Fifth Seminar of the International Commercial Expert Committee and the ceremony marking the renewal of the appointments of its Expert Members.
In recent years, the Supreme People’s Court has made a very important contribution to the international commercial dispute resolution world. Since the establishment of the China International Commercial Court in 2018, the Supreme People’s Court has progressively developed a “one-stop” diversified mechanism connecting litigation, arbitration and mediation. Its significance lies indeed in promoting effective coordination among courts, arbitral institutions and mediation organisations, an extremely important job.
This experience also demonstrates that the future of international commercial dispute resolution may increasingly lie in their effective coordination. What ultimately matters is that parties are able to choose the most appropriate mechanism for the nature of their dispute, while ensuring that proceedings are professional and efficient and that their outcomes can be effectively enforced.
Last year, I had the pleasure of receiving from Judge Shen Hongyu a copy of Selected Cases of International Commercial Adjudication of the Supreme People’s Court. This collection presents 44 representative international commercial cases. What impressed me and us is that when reading these cases was the breadth of the subject matter and the complexity of the legal questions involved, as well as the judicial philosophy that they collectively reflect. By providing concrete examples of how the Chinese judiciary responds to the practical needs of cross-border commerce a stable and predictable legal environment in support of China’s high-level opening-up, is also presented to the world. At the same time, they demonstrate the openness of the Chinese courts to international rules, to different legal traditions, to comparative legal experience, and to international judicial dialogue.
In June this year, during the UNIDROIT Asian Transnational Law Centre Summer School in Shanghai, I had the opportunity to engage in an in-depth discussion on the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts with a group of young Chinese judges working on foreign-related commercial cases. We were deeply impressed by their professionalism and knowledge of the subject matter. They did not just regard the Principles as a soft-law instrument. Rather, they seriously considered how the Principles could assist judges in interpreting contracts, filling gaps in the applicable law, and identifying internationally accepted solutions to recurring problems in international commerce.
That exchange reinforced a fundamental conviction of mine, namely that effective international commercial dispute resolution requires three closely connected elements: high-quality transnational commercial rules, highly qualified legal professionals, and a clear and effective dispute resolution framework. Relying on substantive rules that are clear, balanced and internationally coordinated is paramount. At the same time, an institutional framework is needed to support the effective operation of litigation, arbitration and mediation, and to ensure that the resulting decisions can ultimately be enforced.
For UNIDROIT, this has been a central concern throughout almost a century of work. And this year is particularly significant, since as some of you might know, UNIDROIT celebrates its Centenary, its hundred years of operation.
In this context, I’d like to mention that as early as the 1930s, UNIDROIT established a dedicated working group to study international arbitration in the field of private law. In 1935, the Institute prepared a preliminary draft law on international arbitration; this was followed in 1936 by a further draft legislation and a report on a uniform law on arbitration, concerning both commercial arbitration and state arbitration. UNIDROIT constitutes hence a cradle on legal work on international arbitration.
Today, UNIDROIT continues to develop coordinated, clear and practically workable legal instruments for cross-border transactions and international commercial dispute resolution. Our work encompasses substantive rules on international commercial contracts and specific types of contractual transactions, transnational civil procedure, enforcement, or emerging questions of property rights and liability in the digital economy. These instruments operate at different stages of commercial transactions and dispute resolution, but they serve a common objective. That is, reducing legal uncertainty in cross-border commerce.
The UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts are among the most clear representative examples. They provide a neutral, balanced and international set of rules for commercial contracts generally. Parties may choose the Principles to govern their contracts, while judges and arbitrators may use them to interpret or supplement international uniform law and domestic law. In mediation, common substantive principles can also help parties assess their respective legal positions and provide a neutral basis for negotiated solutions.
UNIDROIT has also completed its project on Best Practices for Effective Enforcement, in which the Supreme People’s Court has been represented in our Working Group, and we are very grateful for that. This project considers how judgments and other enforceable rights can be realised in a timely, transparent and effective manner. After all, from the perspective of the parties, a judgment or arbitral award that cannot be effectively enforced cannot fully achieve the ultimate purpose of dispute resolution.
Other UNIDROIT instruments likewise demonstrate how clear substantive rules can help prevent disputes and, when disputes do arise, provide judges and arbitrators with clearer and more predictable legal foundations.
The Cape Town Convention, for example, one of the most successful commercial law treaties in the world, provides legal certainty for cross-border asset-based financing by harmonising rules on the creation, priority and enforcement of international interests. The Model Law on Factoring provides a modern and coordinated legal framework for receivables financing, while the Principles on Digital Assets and Private Law give us a common legal framework for questions concerning proprietary rights, transfers, third-party effectiveness and insolvency in digital asset transactions.
UNIDROIT 2026–2028 Work Programme also includes a new project on the Regulation of Digital Risks through the Civil Liability Law. The project will examine liability issues arising from artificial intelligence, automated decision-making systems, digital platforms and other digital applications. Later today, my colleague Professor Huang Meiling will address some of the opportunities and challenges that artificial intelligence presents for international commercial justice.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Justices, Your Honours, international rules cannot be developed through abstract legal analysis alone. They must draw upon the practical experience of courts, arbitral institutions and mediation organisations, and reflect the real problems encountered by judges and practitioners in real cases.
UNIDROIT therefore looks forward to further deepening its cooperation with the Supreme People’s Court of China. We hope to continue our exchanges with Chinese judges on the application of the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, disputes involving digital assets and artificial intelligence, and the effective enforcement of judgments and arbitral awards. We also hope to see more outstanding Chinese commercial judges participating directly in the work of UNIDROIT.
