Institute for Internet Policy & Law @ Beijing Normal University

At its forty-eighth session (2015) the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) requested its Secretariat to convene a colloquium on legal issues related to identity management and trust services with a view to compiling information on the scope and methodology of future work in that area (see Official Records of the General Assembly, Seventieth Session, Supplement No. 17 (A/70/17), para. 358). In line with that request, UNCITRAL Electronic Commerce Working Group organized the Colloquium on ID Management and Trust Services on April 21 and 22, 2016 at the Vienna International Centre. The Program and conference materials are available on the UNCITRAL website.

Prof. Xue, as the second speaker of the first Session of the Colloquium, gave a comprehensive presentation on “Scoping Cross-Border e-ID Management and Facilitating International e-Trade”. Prof. Xue pointed out the key legal issues with respect to the eID management and the possible legal framework or solution to address these issues. The new theoretical analysis and framing provided by Prof. Xue were warmly haled as the creative and innovative research that opens up a new legal dimension by the legal professions at the conference. Prof. Xue specifically addressed the open “federal” approach for eID management and the important role of trust service and creatively adopted the three-tier analytical benchmarks for eID law and scoping, i.e. principal IDs, derivative IDs and alternative IDs.

The Colloquium is very informative and invited the representatives of almost all the existing eID management laws and practices, including Estonia, US Virginia, Russia, Peru and China.

Through the discussions at the Colloquium, the UNCITRAL will officially launch the new project on eID management and trust service in the auspices of the Electronic Commerce Working Group, which is expected to conclude its work on the drafting of the Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records.

On December 1, 2015, BNU-UNCITRAL Joint Certificate Program on International E-Commerce Law (JCP) successfully organized the UNCITRAL Asia Pacific Day Lecture in the Law School Auditorium of BNU. The Co-Directors of JCP, Prof. Hong Xue, Director BNU IIPL, and Dr. Luca Castellani, UNCITRAL Legal Officer, gave the lectures respectively.

Prof. Xue, at the beginning, gave a briefing of the development of JCP (please refer to the JCP Chronicle at <http://wiki.iipl.org.cn/?cat=11>) and addressed the Program’s great potential on teaching, research and international collaboration. Prof. Xue also circulated the new updated flyer of the JCP to the audience.

Dr. Castellani joined remotely from Vienna and gave a lecture titled “The future of e-commerce law: the UNCITRAL perspective”. Although the same lecture has been presented several time at different occasions in Beijing, Dr. Castellani was always able to provide the updated and fresh knowledge and information and inspired the new thinking in this legal area.

Many BNU post-graduate students joined the Lecture and actively interacted with the Lecturers, despite Beijing’s terribly smoggy weather all through early December 2015. The students’ passion for international e-commerce law is inspiring all the faculties of JCP to work harder to achieve bigger success of the Program.

The Publicity materials for the Lectures shown on BNU campus. The left one is the JCP Officeat BNU and the right one is the Poster for the Lecture

2015年12月1日，“北京师范大学与联合国国际贸易法委员会国际电子商务法联合认证项目2015亚太日专题讲座”在北京师范大学后主楼1822学术会议室举行，本次讲座通过电话会议与现场会议相结合的方式举行。讲座由北京师范大学互联网法律与政策中心主任、认证项目主任薛虹教授现场主持， 联合国贸法会官员Luca Castellani博士也通过电话视频参与了本次讲座。

本次讲座主要内容是回顾本项目的阶段性成果、总结项目进程中遇到的问题和解决办法。首先，作为项目合作方的薛虹教授高度评价了认证项目的成果，特别是对其他发展中国家法制建设的重大作用和对参加者的视野的扩展。随后，她也提出了认证项目的不足之处和尚存在的一些问题。紧接着，本项目的外方合作人Luca Castellani通过电话会议的形式，对整个这次活动研究的内容和亟待解决的问题做了完美阐述。Luca Castellani最后希望在座的所有学生能够积极参与，勤于思考，为推动中国的法制建设而努力。最后，学生提问环节，法学院学生王倩积极发言，她的问题集中代表了在座学生们心中的疑惑，Luca Castellani博士耐心的解答了她的问题后，会议在意犹未尽的气氛中结束。12月初的北京雾霾笼罩，但是学生们不减的学术热情，激励JCP的所有同仁继续努力，争取更大的成功。

2015 UNCITRAL-BNU Joint Certificate Program on International E-Commerce Law (JCP) Spring Week was successfully held by Beijing Normal University on June 21-26. Mr. Renaud Sorieul, the UNCITRAL Secretary and Co-Chair of JCP International Expert Advisory Committee, Mr. Joao Ribeiro, the Director of UNCITRAL Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific and the other International experts attended the series of events and showed their strongly support.

A series of academic activities were held during this week.

 June 21  15:30-16:30   UNCITRAL Experts Meeting

 Mr. Renaud Sorieul, the UNCITRAL Secretary, Mr. Joao Ribeiro, the Director of UNCITRAL Regional Centre for Asia, Mr. Jae Sung Lee, the legal officer of UNCITRAL, Prof. Xue Hong, Co-Director of JCP, and other international experts attended the meeting. They discussed the details of training on International Trade Law for senior officers from Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

June 22   14:00-15:00   International Expert Public Lecture

 2015 UNCITRAL-BNU Joint Certificate Program on International E-Commerce Law Spring Week – International Expert Public Lecture given by Mr. Renaud Sorieul, the UNCITRAL Secretary and Co-Chair of JCP International Expert Advisory Committee was successfully held at Room 1824 of New Main Building. The lecture was co –host by IIPL of BNU and UNCITRAL-BNU Joint Certificate Program, and supported by The China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC). Prof. Xue moderated the lecture. More than 30 arbitrators and officers from CIETAC, along with scores of BNU post-graduate students, joined the lecture.

Mr. Renaud Sorieu’s lecture on a series of international conventions administrated by UNCITRAL was informative, insightful and interactive. A couple of arbitrators had the interesting dialogue with Mr. Renaud Sorieu. The lecture ended in applause.

June 22 15:00-16:00 Meeting of JCP IEAC Co-chairs

 Vice president of BNU, Mr. Chen Guangju had a meeting with Mr. Renaud Sorieu, the UNCITRAL Secretary and Co-Chair of JCP International Expert Advisory Committee on June 22. The meeting was about the cooperation between the two sides and the future development.

 In the meeting, Mr. Chen awarded Mr. Renaud Sorieu the certificate of “Co-Chair of International Expert Advisory Committee of BNU-UNCITRAL RCAP Joint Certificate Program on International E-Commerce Law” to appreciate his contribution.

Mr. Chen introduced the history of BNU and the Law school, expecting the future cooperation and expressed his support on UNCITRAL-BNU Joint Certificate Program on International E-Commerce Law. While Mr. Renaud Sorieu spoke highly of the progress of Co-joint program. He said that UNCITRAL had made a lot accomplishment on legislative work on International E-Commerce Law and it’s a pleasure to cooperate with BNU to build the first program about International E-Commerce, he looked forward to more far cooperation.

Mr. Renaud Sorieu indicated that United Nations attach great importance on UNCITRAL’s work as the development of global economic environment. He thought international trade law would play a more important role in promoting living standards than international Criminal Law and international human rights law. He hoped more professionals would work for United Nations to provide the power of China.

Mr. Chen said that Law school of BNU put such a high value on international communication, and trained many students with ability to use second foreign language, hoping them to make contribution to the development of international communication.

Prof. Wang Xiumei, Director of international cooperation and communication, Beijing Normal University, Prof. Xue Hong, Co-Director of JCP, Professor Zhang Hong, Associate Dean of Beijing Normal University Law School, and Mr. Jaesung Lee, the Legal Officer of UNCITRAL attended the meeting.

 June 24 14:00-17:00 Prof. Xue’s Lecture for Senior Officials from DPRK

Prof. Xue gave a lecture to the Senior Officers from Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on United Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts and the other international trade laws.