Mauritius Elected to the Chairmanship of UNCITRAL

Mauritius was elected to the Chairmanship of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) at the 44th session of the Commission held in Vienna this week. Mr. Salim Moollan, who has been the Mauritian delegate at UNCITRAL since 2006, succeeds to Mr.Ricardo Sandoval Lopez of Chile as the elected Chairperson for the next 12 months.

UNCITRAL is the core legal body of the United Nations in the field of international trade law, and a legal body with universal membership specialising in commercial law reform worldwide for over 40 years. Its mission is the modernisation and harmonisation of rules on international business. The Commission’s work is premised on the development of trade as a means to faster growth, higher living standards, and new opportunities through commerce. In order to increase these opportunities worldwide, UNCITRAL’s work focuses on the formulation of modern, fair and harmonised rules on commercial transactions.

In a statement in the National Assembly on 28 June, the Prime Minister, Dr Navin Ramgoolam, GCSK, FRCP, expressed his satisfaction at the election of Mauritius to the Chairmanship of UNCITRAL. “ The election of Mauritius to the Chairmanship of UNCITRAL with the support of the representatives of the 60 Member States of UNCITRAL will no doubt give further momentum to our long-term commitment to making Mauritius a hub for international arbitration in the years to come” he said.

The UNCITRAL, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1966, plays an important role in developing that framework in pursuance of its mandate to further the law of international trade by preparing and promoting the use and adoption of legislative and non-legislative instruments in a number of key areas of commercial law. Those areas include dispute resolution, international contract practices, transport, insolvency, electronic commerce, international payments, secured transactions, procurement and sale of goods.

Mr. Moollan is already chairing one of UNCITRAL’s Working Groups dedicated to International arbitration. He is a barrister in independent practice from Essex Court Chambers in London and from the Moollan Chambers in Mauritius. In addition to his part-time work at UNCITRAL, Mr. Moollan is the Vice-President of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, and a Visiting Lecturer in International Arbitration Law at King’s College, London.