Volume 42 | Number 3 Summer 2007
This issue of the Journal publishes papers presented at the 2006 Biennial Meeting of the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law. The Academy consists of one hundred scholars and teachers from around the world. Founded in the 1980s, its members come from thirty-three countries. They teach and write across the entire range of law affecting commerce, including contracts, the regulation of consumer transactions, banking and finance, market regulation, and bankruptcy/insolvency. Presiding over the 2006 meeting of the Academy was its President, Ross Cranston of the London School of Economics (and former Solicitor General of England). The President Elect was Jürgen Basedow, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Private International Law. The Treasurer was Ron Cuming of the University of Saskatchewan.
The IACCL meets every other year to discuss papers presented by the members. These papers report developments in commercial law and law reform proposals in various countries and international institutions, public and private. The IACCL has met all over the world, including Oxford University in England, St. Louis University in the United States, Bar Ilan University in Israel, the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and the University of Riga in Latvia.
The Journal is publishing twenty-two papers reflecting the eclectic interests of our group. It would be quite impossible in a short space to describe each of them, so I will limit myself to describing them by subject, with some mentioned twice in overlapping categories. The editors have helpfully marked them by the subject areas below.
- Comparative Law: Andenas; Ben-Ishai; Booth; Del Duca; Geva; Kozolchyk; Norton; Quintana-Adriano; Reich.
- International Business: Andenas; Basedow; Block-Lieb; Cranston; Geva; Nanda; Paulus; Sarra; Westbrook.
- Legal Theory: Cranston; Del Duca; Worthington.
- Legal Institutions: Date-Bah; Booth.
- Insolvency: Block-Lieb; Booth; Duggan; Matsushita; Paulus; Westbrook.
- Secured Lending/Securitization: Booth; Kozolchyk; Lerner.
- Consumer Law: Matsushita; Norton.
- Competition Law: Andenas; Basedow; Reich.
- Payment Systems: Byrne; Geva.
- Corporate: Ben-Ishai.
- European Union: Basedow; Geva.
One of the joys of the Academy’s meetings is the presentation of topics in areas of interest to each of us but just enough outside our specialties that we are introduced to concepts and developments we might not otherwise have considered. Nonetheless, one theme dominates throughout these papers: global law reform. Even developments in national and comparative reports frequently illustrate the spread of legal tools and concepts, not merely borrowed but re-engineered and internationalized. In describing this process, some papers are focused on harmonization or convergence, while others consider conventions and model laws that are designed to establish international or multinational rules. Nowhere is reform more active than in attempts to modernize and harmonize the law governing security interests. No less than five papers reflect a strong commitment to the idea that sound secured credit laws are important to economic growth and even the reduction of poverty, with the locus of reform proposals ranging from the traditionally commercial societies of the European Union to the emerging commercial giant, China. Insolvency and bankruptcy attracted a number of authors discussing, inter alia, UNCITRAL’s work in insolvency law and the continuing spread of consumer bankruptcy laws. If one considers, as I do, that security and bankruptcy are essentially a single topic, nine papers make this one the most discussed subject.
Competition law also receives considerable attention, including a critique of EU reform and a look at the special place of agricultural competition, while another paper considers the concept of proportionality in world trade law. Two papers discuss international payment systems, the conduit of through which all this global commerce must flow, and another paper addresses the related topic of disclosure in international capital markets. Three others address institutional questions, including the construction of a specialized court, the regularization of choice of forum, and the evolving concept of the gatekeeper. Three of the papers step back from the immediate proposals for reform to consider from a wider perspective the rule of law in the globalization process, harmonization across the civil law/common law boundary, and the evolving relationship between property and obligation.
Although a number of the papers discuss issues important to consumers, there are two papers focused specifically on consumer reform in banking and insolvency law.
These brief descriptions necessarily do no more than hint at the rich potpourri that we enjoyed during the Academy’s meeting in Austin and that awaits the reader in this issue. Enjoy.