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Guide to Enactment of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Procurement

Date of adoption: 28 June 2012

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) has prepared this Guide to enactment of its 2011 Model Law on Public Procurement (the Model Law) to provide background and explanatory information on the policy considerations reflected in the Model Law.

The information presented in this Guide is intended to explain both the objectives of the Model Law (as set out in its Preamble) and how the provisions in the Model Law are designed to achieve those objectives. The Guide is thus intended to enhance the effectiveness of the Model Law as a tool for modernizing and reforming procurement systems, particularly where there is limited familiarity with the type of procurement procedures the Model Law contains.

This Guide is intended as a reference tool for policymakers and legislators, regulators and those providing guidance to users of a procurement system based on the Model Law. The primary focus of these readers will vary: for policymakers and legislators, it may be on whether to engage in procurement reform and, if so, the scope of the reform to be undertaken and which provisions to enact. For regulators and those providing guidance to users, it may be on specific issues of implementation and use of the provisions of the Model Law. For this reason, the Guide separates, to the extent possible, commentary on policy issues and on issues of implementation and use of the Model Law.

This Guide is also intended to assist users of the earlier UNCITRAL Model Law in the area of public procurement - the Model Law on Procurement of Goods, Construction and Services (adopted in 1994, the "1994 Model Law") - in updating their legislation to reflect recent developments in public procurement. It, therefore, addresses the expanded scope of the Model Law as compared with its 1994 counterpart, and also explains, as necessary, the main recent developments in procurement policies and practice that underlie the revisions made to that 1994 Model Law.

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