The 1st Workshop of the Implementation of and Compliance with International Commercial Law Treaties Project (Treaty Project) took place from 21 to 22 January 2025 at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge, and online. The session was attended by 20 participants, including academics from leading universities.
The Treaty Project is organised under the auspices of the Cape Town Convention Academic Project, which is a partnership between UNIDROIT and the University of Cambridge, with the Aviation Working Group as its Founding Sponsor. The Project is supported by the UNIDROIT Foundation and Aviareto, aligning with the Foundation’s mission to support work designed to increase the effectiveness and benefits of international commercial law reform. As an interdisciplinary initiative, the Treaty Project employs a comparative methodology to explore various approaches to incentivizing the implementation of and compliance with commercial law treaties.
The 1st Workshop focused on target treaty areas which can present examples of, and comparisons for, providing implementation and compliance incentives. Experts from different treaty areas had previously provided responses to targeted Questionnaires. During the Workshop, the experts shared insights based on their findings, comparing compliance strategies across treaty areas and discussing how these approaches can inform commercial law treaties.
Building on these discussions, the Workshop helped determine the next steps for the Treaty Project, which will proceed on two levels:
a) The development of a Best Practices Guide for Implementation of and Compliance with International Commercial Law Treaties.
b) Further academic research into different treaty areas, extending beyond commercial law.
A full report for the Workshop will be posted in the coming weeks on the website of the UNIDROIT Foundation and the Cape Town Convention Academic Project.