Tracing the path of the role of technology in Unidroit instruments

Technological progress has set the pace for the economic development in modern societies and accelerated a profound and reticular transformation of international trade. Digital technologies have not only facilitated cross-border transactions, but, above all, unleashed the extraordinary potential of a pure digital economy: a global, delocalized, data-driven, exponentially growing digital economy. The protagonist role of technology in the present international trade has not gone unnoticed for Unidroit. At an initial stage, a functional-equivalence approach inspired the more relevant instruments in international contracting. Subsequently, technology gains prominence and individuality in Unidroit instruments. The International Registry in the Cape Town Convention system illustrates the policy preference for a purely electronic register and crystallizes the acknowledgement of digital technology as a harmonized solution in an international trade law instrument. Today, technology pervades Unidroit activity and its increasing presence is revealing differently in a number of ongoing projects. First, the Model Law on Warehouse Receipts that is a joint project with UNCITRAL offers the opportunity to develop an entirely eWRs (electronic warehouse receipts)-oriented model, freed from paper-determining considerations. Second, the project on Best Practices on Effective Enforcement is an extraordinary opportunity to address the possibilities and the challenges of an intensive and extensive use of digital technologies in dispute resolution and enforcement procedures. The pandemic proved the important role of technology in ensuring access to justice in exceptional circumstances. Third, the project on Digital Assets and Private Law, within the broader joint project on the taxonomy of digital law issues, captures the relevance of digital technology as the subject matter. Attention of international harmonization organizations is called to go beyond the principles of functional equivalence and technology neutrality.