EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

How does UNCITRAL’s work and activities specifically touch upon e-commerce and the digital economy?  

UNCITRAL has prepared a suite of legislative texts to enable and facilitate the use of electronic means to engage in commercial activities, which have been adopted in over 100 States.  

In keeping with its central and coordinating role within the United Nations system in addressing legal issues related to the digital economy, UNCITRAL continues its efforts to legally enable emerging technologies and their trade applications, including in connection with other areas of work such as dispute resolution, security interests, insolvency and the international transport of goods. In 2022, UNCITRAL approved the publication of a taxonomy of legal issues related to the digital economy, which records exploratory work by the UNCITRAL secretariat on the topics of artificial intelligence, data, online platforms, digital assets, and decentralized systems, and which is intended to guide proposals for future legislative work on electronic commerce (digital trade) and in other areas of work. 

Significant work in cooperation with other organizations has also been conducted in the field of legal aspects of single windows and paperless trade facilitation. 

IMPACT STORIES

Bahrain: creating a suitable legal environment for fintech and digital innovation

UNCITRAL and Bahrain have worked together to create a modern, efficient and effective legal environment supporting the latest developments of the digital economy.

The Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) is an investment promotion agency with overall responsibility for attracting investment into the Kingdom of Bahrain and supporting initiatives that enhance the investment climate. The EDB works to ensure that Bahrain’s investment climate is attractive, including with respect to its legal aspects.

The EDB and UNCITRAL have a long and significant record of cooperation on drafting laws enabling digital trade. The Electronic Transactions Law, which has been first adopted in 2002 based on the MLEC, is an early example of this fruitful joint work.

Another significant result of the cooperation between Bahrain and UNCITRAL is the enactment of the MLETR, which was done with the adoption of the Electronic Transferable Records Law (Law No. 55/2018). Bahrain was the first jurisdiction in the world that enacted the MLETR, which is now widely seen as a key enabler of post-COVID 19 economic recovery.

The Electronic Transferable Records Law has been prepared in support of the “Cloud First” policy. That same effort led to Bahrain’s accession to the ECC, the first Arab State to do so.

Kiribati: enabling electronic transactions for digital trade and climate change resilience

The UNCITRAL Secretariat and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Cooperatives (MCIC) of Kiribati have been working to define scope and content of an electronic transactions bill based on UNCITRAL texts, which already provide the template for all existing laws on electronic transactions adopted in the Pacific.

The work is carried out based on the policy insight contained in the Kiribati Rapid eTrade Readiness Assessment. Given the peculiar geographic and social features of the country, the Assessment highlights that broad use of ICT is considered “a key enabler of more equitable growth and improved access to essential social services: education, health, disaster management, and national security”.

At the operational level, the Enhanced Integrated Framework funded and co-organised with UNCITRAL and MCIC a workshop to sensitize stakeholders on the electronic transactions bill and collect their input held in Tarawa on 19-20 December 2019.

As a first result, Kiribati became a party to the ECC on 21 April 2020. Moreover, a bill incorporating the MLEC, the substantive provisions of the ECC and the MLETR has been adopted by the Maneaba ni Maungatabu (the Parliament of Kiribati) in August 2021.

The resulting law will significantly contribute to pursuing sustainable and diversified economic development. Moreover, the law will help the diffusion of information and communication technologies that are key to addressing in an innovative manner Kiribati’s special vulnerability due to factors such as climate change and rise in sea level.

Additional work is foreseen to legally enable paperless trade facilitation, in cooperation with UN/ESCAP.

To sum up, UNCITRAL and a number of other actors are carrying out a coordinated and coherent effort to support Kiribati’s inclusion in the digital economy.

OTHER FEATURES

Latest developments in digital trade law

The fifty-eighth annual session of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) took place in Vienna, Austria from 7 to 23 July 2025. Several decisions of the Commission touch upon matters relating to digital trade law.

UNCITRAL finalized the preparation of a new draft convention on negotiable cargo documents that addresses a legal gap in international trade by establishing a harmonized legal framework for negotiable documents of title across all modes of transport—air, road, rail, and sea—regardless of the different modes of transportation used for the cargo. The convention, which will be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly for adoption, is drafted in medium neutral terms and may thus provide an important element of end-to-end trade digitalization. 

The Commission also authorized the publication of a guidance document on legal issues relating to the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in trade, which assists business in assessing legal matters that may arise when procuring DLT or delivering services using DLT.

With regard to ongoing legislative work, the Commission took note of the progress made by its Working Group IV (Electronic Commerce) in preparing default rules for data provision contract. The next meetings of Working Group IV will take place in Vienna (20-24 October 2025) and New York (23–27 March 2026). The work of Working Group II on the recognition and enforcement of electronic arbitral awards is also relevant for digital trade.

Moreover, the Commission requested its secretariat to continue or start work on several digital trade workstreams, including (a) stocktaking developments in dispute resolution in the digital economy, (b) the compilation and consolidation of UNCITRAL texts on electronic commerce and related texts, (c) end-to-end trade digitalization and paperless trade, (d) decentralized autonomous organizations in trade, (e) digital platforms and private law and (f) digital payments.

The preparatory documents of the session are available at https://uncitral.un.org/en/commission and in the corresponding pages of the other official UN languages, where the Report of the Commission session will also be posted in due time. Preparatory documents include reports of Working Group sessions, papers on other work topics, a draft of the negotiable cargo documents convention, and the draft guidance document on legal issues relating to the use of DLT.