Harmonization, Legal

National and International Unification

Law has long been subject to harmonizing influences. The legacy of Roman law was revived during the Middle Ages, especially in the early universities of Europe. Canon law was a related harmonizing factor. Groups of merchants also developed substantive legal norms and their own procedures for resolving certain commercial disputes (the lex mercatoria). Until the eighteenth century, Europe was a patchwork of political units, each with its own legal system. During the nineteenth century, especially, political forces aggregated these units into nation-states. Nationwide legal systems played a key unifying role among these units, often through the enactment of comprehensive codes. Even in modern nation-states, however, the law has not been necessarily uniform, especially in federal constitutional systems such as the United States.

Among the new legal orders established by nationstates, moreover, there remained great variance. This diversity became increasingly problematic as empires competed, industrialization spread, and new technologies boosted the international flow of goods and people. During the late nineteenth century, a largely pragmatic response was to attempt to unify aspects of the law in nation-states, especially commercial law involving or affecting cross-border activities. The preferred means was the international treaty, although impetus often came from private groups as well. Early achievements were recorded in intellectual property law, maritime law (prompted by the International Law Association and the Comité Maritime International), and private international law (through the Hague Conference).

The devastating effects of the two World Wars caused legal unification efforts to take on a more normative dimension. Except in the area of labor standards (through the International Labor Organization, established in 1919), the main efforts remained on commercial law unification. Drafters concluded treaties in the areas of negotiable instruments, civil aviation, and land transport. The International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) was established in 1926 under the League of Nations. In 1966, its harmonization agenda was complemented by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). It took over responsibility for the hugely popular 1958 New York Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, which underpinned a dramatic expansion of international commercial arbitration for resolving a range of commercial disputes. Initially, the focus was on investment-related disputes, especially involving newly independent states. Later, it turned to trade disputes between capitalist and communist, and North and South, economies. UNCITRAL persevered with the 1980 Vienna Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), which seventytwo countries had ratified by 2006 (including almost three-quarters of world trade).

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