Rome, 23 May 2025 — UNIDROIT welcomed distinguished guests and experts to its seat in Rome for a high-level conference titled “UNIDROIT’s Contribution to Private Law and Agricultural Development – Focus on Warehouse Receipts and Contract Farming.” Held in a hybrid format, the event was convened as a side session of the 105th meeting of the UNIDROIT Governing Council and spotlighted two cornerstone instruments in the field of agricultural law.
Launch of the UNCITRAL-UNIDROIT Model Law on Warehouse Receipts
The conference opened with the official launch of the UNCITRAL-UNIDROIT Model Law on Warehouse Receipts (MLWR), adopted in 2024, alongside its Guide to Enactment. This milestone event was introduced by UNIDROIT Secretary-General Prof. Ignacio Tirado and UNCITRAL Secretary Ms Anna Joubin-Bret.
Chaired by UNIDROIT Legal Officer Dr. Philine Wehling, the panel examined the transformative potential of the MLWR in facilitating access to finance, lowering borrowing costs for farmers, stimulating investment in agricultural infrastructure, and supporting global food security. The panel included presentations by Professor Eugenia Dacoronia, Member of the UNIDROIT Governing Council; Dr. Luca Castellani, Legal Officer at UNCITRAL; Professor Hiroo Sono of Hokkaido University; and Dr. Marek Dubovec, Director of Law Reform Programs at the International Law Institute.
A Decade of the Legal Guide on Contract Farming
The second panel commemorated the ten-year anniversary of the UNIDROIT/FAO/IFAD Legal Guide on Contract Farming, underscoring its enduring value as a tool for fostering fair and transparent legal frameworks in agricultural production and trade. Introductory remarks were delivered by Professor Ignacio Tirado, Dr. Guido Acquaviva, Deputy Legal Counsel at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and Katherine Meighan, Chief Legal and Governance Officer at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
The panel was chaired by UNIDROIT Deputy Secretary-General Professor Anna Veneziano and included presentations by Professor Henry D. Gabriel, Member (ad honorem) of the UNIDROIT Governing Council; Carmen Bullon, Legal Officer at FAO; Professor Carlos A. da Silva, Agribusiness Development Consultant in Brazil; and Professor Letzadzo Isaac Kometsi, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the National University of Lesotho.
The event underscored UNIDROIT’s commitment to the development of inclusive legal instruments that advance sustainable agricultural practices and legal certainty for stakeholders at all levels of the agri-food chain.
Professor Iacopo Donati is the UNIDROIT/Bank of Italy Chair Holder and is mainly responsible for assisting in the Bank Insolvency project. He is Professor of Corporate and Insolvency Law at the University of Siena, and coordinates the research project ‘Pro.Re.Ba.’ (Proportionating rules on bank crisis prevention and management to the case of retail banks), which has received funding from the Italian Ministry of University. He has previously taught corporate law at the University of Venice ‘Ca’ Foscari’, at the University of Florence and at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’.
rtered Institute of Arbitrators (London). He further holds a post-graduate diploma in law from the Kenya School of Law. Allan is also a scholar from the Hague Academy of International Law.
rofessor Ignacio Tirado was appointed Secretary-General by the Governing Council at its 97th session, and officially took office on 27 August 2018. A national of Spain, Professor Tirado (Commercial, Corporate and Insolvency Law, Universidad Autónoma of Madrid, Spain) holds a PhD from the Universities of Bologna and Autónoma de Madrid and an LLM from the University of London. Professor Tirado has been a Senior Legal Consultant at the World Bank’s Legal Vice-Presidency and Financial Sector Practice for more than nine years, having also consulted for the IMF on insolvency related matters as well as for the Asian Development Bank on commercial legal reform.
A Swedish national, Ms Lena Peters grew up in Italy where she attended an English school. In 1978 she took her Juris Kandidatexamen at Stockholm University followed by a Master of Laws from King’s College, London (1979). Since 1985 she has been with UNIDROIT, first as Research Officer, lastly as Principal Legal Officer, her main duties being Secretary to the Working Group for the Preparation of Principles of International Commercial Contracts, Secretary to the Study Group on Franchising, Secretary to the Committee of Governmental Experts on Franchising.She also collaborated on the project for the preparation of the ELI-Unidroit Model European Rules of Civil Procedure. She is currently Managing Editor of the Uniform Law Review and responsible for publications at UNIDROIT.
Marina Schneider is Principal Legal Officer and Treaty Depositary at UNIDROIT. She studied law at the University of Strasbourg (France) and Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne. She joined the UNIDROIT in 1987 and was involved in the elaboration and French versions of most UNIDROIT instruments since. She is in charge of the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects and of the UNESCO-UNIDROIT Model Provisions on State Ownership of Undiscovered Cultural Objects. She is the author of the Explanatory Report of the 1995 Convention and many articles on the Convention and other international instruments in the field. Ms Schneider is also responsible for the project on private collections and for the UNIDROIT Convention Academic Project (UCAP). She is member of the Board of the International Society for Research on Art and Cultural Heritage Law (ISCHAL).
Professor of Commercial Law, Carlos III University of Madrid. Currently, Sir Roy Goode Scholar at UNIDROIT, Rome, 2021-2022. Chair of Excellence 2017-2018 at University of Oxford (Uc3m- Santander Program), affiliated to Harris Manchester College. Previously Distinguished Visiting Professor and fellow of a number of Academic Institutions. Arbitrator of Madrid Court of Arbitration. Member of ELI (European Law Institute) Council and Executive Committee. Member of the Expert Group of the European Commission on Liability and New Technologies and member of the Expert Group of the European Observatory of Platform Economy; the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law; the expert group of the Inclusive Global Legal Innovation Platform for Online Dispute Resolution – UNCITRAL and Hong Kong Department of Justice. Expert of the UNIDROIT Study Group on the MAC Protocol of the Cape Town Convention on International Interests. Delegate of Spain to UNIDROIT for the adoption of the Protocol, delegate of Spain in Working Group VI of UNCITRAL on secured transactions and in Working Group IV on Electronic Commerce. Member of UNIDROIT Working Groups on Enforcement and Warehouse Receipts.
William Brydie-Watson is an Australian lawyer who specialises in secured transactions law and private international law. Before joining UNIDROIT, William was a government lawyer in the Private International Law and International Arbitration section of the Australian Attorney-General’s Department, where he worked primarily on treaty negotiation and the implementation of private international law treaties in Australia. At UNIDROIT, he is primarily responsible for the implementation of the Mining, Agriculture and Construction (MAC Protocol) to the 2001 Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment and the development of a Model Law on Factoring. William also serves as UNIDROIT’s liaison with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and as manager of the Institute’s Scholarship and Internship Programme. Admitted to practice in New South Wales and the High Court of Australia, he has a Bachelor of Arts (honours), a Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Laws from the Australian National University. William also lectures on International Secured Transactions Law at the Eotvos Lorand Faculty of Law in Budapest.