A Transnational Consensus on Secured Transactions Law? The 2016 UNCITRAL Model Law

The concept of transnational law has no settled meaning. For some, it is limited to internationally applicable norms generated by private actors and ‘private legislators’ operating outside State-centric ideas of what constitutes law. Yet even the proponents of this most purist concept recognize that some subjects require formal multilateral cooperation to achieve a transnational consensus. In view of its distributional effects on third parties and interrelationship with State-based institutions and norms, secured transactionsSecured transactions law is one such subject, as reflected in the 2016 UNCITRAL Model Law on Secured Transactions, the subject of this article. Part I reviews the background to the Model Law and the considerations that influenced the decision to undertake that project. Part II assesses the extent to which the resulting text has successfully navigated the potential hazards in drafting a sufficiently flexible uniform text to permit its adaptation to divergent legal landscapes and legal cultures. Part III explains why the Model Law is principally composed of single uniform provisions and then examines the reasons underlying the relatively small number of points on which the Model Law failed to achieve a consensus, instead offering enacting States a choice of alternative options. Part IV offers some concluding thoughts on whether the apparent transnational consensus achieved by the Model Law is illusory or real.