Harmonization and Unification of Law - Essay Example

Over the years UNCITRAL has developed a number of conventions and laws to deal with trade transactions and business law associated with international trade (UNCITRAL 2006). "Harmonization" and "unification" of law of international trade is the manner through which the law aiding international commerce is created and adopted.Commerce in many countries may be deficient or have inadequate governing laws that may impede international trade. The role of UNCITRAL is to recognize the existence of such problems in the various legal systems and methodically formulate laws to be supported and implemented by the different legal systems.

The process of Harmonization includes modification of domestic laws to improve predictability in cross-border commercial transactions. Unification is the adoption by states of common legal practices with regards to certain aspects of cross-border commerce (Clift 1999). One of the issues that is ignored with implementing legal rules contained within the sphere of harmonization is that of continual change, innovation and revision of organizations and institutions in a competitive legal environment.

Harmonization and unification of law may weaken the expansion of legal machinery instead of improving domestic legal systems. This can be as a result of two elements contained within the legal system. . If the new law and existing laws are not complementary to each other, harmonization may not be achieved and might actually garble the existing legal system. When law is termed as a cognitive institution it implies that for effective implementation and to enable it to change public behaviour, the law must be completely understood and accepted by law makers, enforcers and customers including those associated with the legal system.

When harmonized law is introduced in a country, although it creates a sweeping change, it also has the effect of isolating the law making process from economic and political development. As a result, it dissociates itself from the process of constant adaptation, improvement and innovation. When it comes to legal innovation it is important to have readily accessible information about the substance of legal rules and about their working in the context of a legal framework in a country. In certain countries laws are required to be context specific, and with a perfect construction of law for widespread implementation it can confound law makers and law enforcers in the receiving countries about how best to use them.

As the example of colonization of developing countries illustrates, the imposition of external rules may result in domestic opposition to them. Even with perfectly formulated laws, the viability of developing effective legal systems that can effectively enforce laws to international settings is left open to question. And occasionally, cross-border transactions have seen rivalry between private international law and the harmonization of private law. (Hartkamp 2004 p.6) In Europe, with the emergence of the EU as a major economic power the