UN trade law office should help countries deal with globalization - legal counsel

The United Nations body charged with harmonizing international trade law must be strengthened so that all countries and businesses, large and small, will be able to participate on an equal legal footing in trade talks in the era of globalization, the UN legal counsel said.

Addressing the General Assembly's Legal Committee on Monday, Under-Secretary-General Hans Corell noted that the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) was established in 1966 to coordinate the work of organizations harmonizing trade law and to encourage cooperation among them.

He noted that he had streamlined the UN Office of Legal Affairs expressly to make resources available for expanding and strengthening UNCITRAL because he favoured using its secretariat to advise the governments of developing countries.

"This is a crucial matter for many developing States and I view this work not only as an element in the field of commercial law. This is a matter that belongs to the sphere of international peace and security," he said.

While UNCITRAL was operating with an understaffed secretariat, "the number of international organizations preparing rules governing international trade has been growing in line with the regional and universal processes of economic integration of states," Mr. Corell said. "If the work of these international organizations is not coordinated, there will be, as has already happened in the past, duplication of work. Furthermore, the rules produced by different bodies may be in conflict."

Meanwhile, the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) was proposing that some of the agreements and legal standards it had already prepared be globalized, he said. UNCITRAL had expressed the view that the extension of the ECE's mandate might "reduce the effectiveness of its (the UN's) action in support of modernization of trade law."