The University of Macau (UM) and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific (UNCITRAL RCAP) today (4 December) held a joint conference titled ‘Embracing Legal Harmonisation as a Panacea for the Challenges Facing International Trade at Times of Global Pandemic’. This year’s conference adopted a hybrid format, with speakers and participants from around the world joining the event either online or in person.

This is the eighth annual conference co-organised by the UNCITRAL RCAP and UM since 2014. Previously, the two institutions have successfully held six high-level international conferences and one international legal symposium. Experts and scholars from different countries and regions, including South Korea, Japan, mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao, spoke during the four thematic sessions. Participants discussed a wide range of contemporary challenges in international trade and commerce, focusing on the relevance of legal harmonisation and solutions during the pandemic. The main topics discussed at the conference include the harmonisation of international trade law and the future of alternative dispute resolution, the 40^th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, the UNCITRAL’s current and future work on digital trade, challenges in international trade and commerce arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the role of UNCITRAL legal instruments.

The opening ceremony of the conference was attended by the following individuals: Prof Augusto Teixeira Garcia, acting dean of the Faculty of Law at UM; Athita Komindr, head of the UNCITRAL RCAP; Rosita Vong Sok Hei, secretary general of the World Trade Center Macau Arbitration Center; Dr. Jorge Neto Valente, president of the Macau Lawyers Association; Prof Rostam J Neuwirth, head of the Department of Global Legal Studies in the FLL, UM; and Muruga Perumal Ramaswamy, associate professor in the FLL, UM. The conference was supported by the World Trade Center Macau Arbitration Center.