Summary of the United Nations Civil Commercial Judicial Criteria

Author: Li Wang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-09-01
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Preface
The unified norms for adjusting civil and commercial legal relationships play a significant role and meaning in civil and commercial interactions. Based on different criteria, these norms can be categorized into different types.
(1) From the perspective of the scope of adjustment, unified norms can be divided into two types: world unified private law and international private law. World unified private law refers to the unification of private law across all countries in the world. Whether it concerns domestic or foreign private legal relationships, all countries apply the same legal content. World unified private law is also known as world law. International private law of the international civil law type refers to the unification of legal content that adjusts foreign private legal relationships between countries when their private laws differ. This approach maintains each country's legal system while establishing unified laws only for foreign civil legal relationships. Compared to world unified private law, this method is more likely to avoid conflicts of interest among countries in legal unification. The 1930 Geneva Convention on Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes, the 1931 Geneva Convention on Checks, and the 1931 Geneva Convention on Checks belong to the former category, while the 1980 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods belongs to the latter.
(2) From the perspective of application methods, unified norms can be divided into directly applicable unified private law and indirectly applicable unified private law. Directly applicable unified private law refers to international unified private law treaties that are declared as part of domestic law through a constitution or law and thus implemented. This method is also known as the adoption of international treaties. The implementation of international treaties within a country does not require the assistance of domestic law, so it is the direct application of the treaty. [1] Indirectly applicable unified private law refers to international unified private law treaties that are incorporated into domestic law through domestic legislation, transforming their content into domestic legal provisions for application. This method is also known as the treaty content transformation method. In this case, contracting states apply international unified private law treaties through domestic law, so it is the indirect application of the treaty. The Warsaw Convention, the Hague Protocol, and the Montreal Convention on civil aviation transport, as well as the 1980 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, belong to the former category, while the Hague Rules on maritime transportation belong to the latter.
(3) From the perspective of whether they have legal effect, unified norms can be divided into unified private law with legal effect and model law for reference in domestic legislation. Unified private law with legal effect refers to international unified private law treaties that establish rights and obligations between contracting states. Regardless of how the treaty is implemented within the country, it has legal effect between contracting states, and the treaty must be respected. Otherwise, states bear the responsibility of violating international treaties. Model law refers to international unified private law treaties that serve as references for domestic legislation. Countries are not obligated to enforce the treaty, which primarily arises due to the difficulties in establishing binding international treaties in certain areas. Recently, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law has developed a series of model laws. The aforementioned Warsaw Convention belongs to the former category, while model laws such as the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law's Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency, Model Law on Electronic Commerce, and Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration belong to the latter.