Harmonization of National Legislation Through Model Laws: From the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law to the League of Arab States and the Gulf Cooperation Council

Abstract

In its productive efforts to remove barriers in international trade and reconcile differences in legal systems, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law [UNCITRAL] adopts model laws that provide guidance for national legislation in enacting new laws or amending and changing existing ones. In the Arab region, the impact of the UNCITRAL Model law on international Commercial arbitration, for instance, is a testimony to this success story. In the meantime, the Arab countries have their own regional model laws that are intended to achieve their goal in establishing a “close cooperation of the member states… in… economic and financial matters including trade, customs, currency, agriculture, and industry”, as stipulated in the charter of the league of the Arab states. This process started in 1981 with the famous Sanna Strategy, a great number of model laws were drafted by the LAS that covered proof of civil and commercial transactions through technology, civil law, combating cyber-crimes, human trafficking and corruption, electronic commerce, legal aid, Arabic judiciary, among others. The Charter of the Gulf Cooperation council similarly states that it aims to “formulate similar regulations in various fields including… economic and financial affairs, commerce, customs and communications”. More recently, the GCC adopted model laws on trademarks, regulations of the financial markets, issuance of investment funds, combating dumping through remedies and preventive measure and several others. The purpose of this paper is to present the first comprehensive, although brief, analysis of these model laws. I will examine the origin of the Arab model laws and whether they rely on international standards including those embodied in the works of the UNCITRAL. I will debate their impact on national legislation in Arab laws and whether they provide guidance in drafting domestic laws irrespective of their non-binding nature. I will argue that reforming and modernizing commercial and trade laws in Arab legal systems are contingent upon learning from comparative models and best global practices