UNCITRAL Colloquium on "Harmonizing law in the age of digital trade and finance", 10-13 February 2026, New York

Colloquium on “Harmonizing law in the age of digital trade and finance – digital assets and platforms”

Dates of Colloquium: Tuesday, 10 February 2026 - 10:00am to Friday, 13 February 2026 - 6:00pm
Venue: United Nations Headquarters, New York, Conference Room 2

At its fifty-eighth session (Vienna, 7–23 July 2025), the Commission requested the UNCITRAL secretariat (i) to continue exploratory work on secured transactions using new types of assets and (ii) to commence exploratory work on digital platforms and private law, and agreed to hold colloquiums on these topics.

In line with that request, the secretariat is organizing a four-day Colloquium at United Nations Headquarters in New York (10–13 February 2026). The Colloquium brings the two topics together under a common theme of digital trade and finance, reflecting that digital trade is increasingly characterized by new types of assets, new ways of trading and financing trade, and a shared dependence on data and digital ecosystems. It aims to foster dialogue across governments, international and regional organizations, academia and the private sector, and to draw out cross-cutting concepts and issues so as to support a coherent approach to possible future work by the Commission.

The Colloquium is organized in two consecutive streams:

Stream 1 – Digital assets and secured financing (10–11 February 2026)

Stream 1 focuses on legal issues arising from the use of digital assets as collateral in secured transactions, including questions around scope and classification under the UNCITRAL Model Law on Secured Transactions (MLST), and whether asset-specific solutions may be needed (notably for third-party effectiveness, priority, enforcement, and conflict-of-law rules).

Among other things, this stream will focus on:

Treatment and categorization of digital assets as collateral (including tokenized assets, electronic documents of title and electronic negotiable instruments);
Practical approaches to achieving third-party effectiveness and priority (including reliance on “control”);
Enforcement of security rights in digital assets; and
Cross-border challenges, including conflict-of-law rules.

Stream 2 – Digital platforms and private law (12–13 February 2026)

Stream 2 focuses on the private law frameworks that govern the operation of digital platforms, guided by the discussion paper prepared by the secretariat (annex to this note), which builds on the Commission’s discussions and the UAE–UNCITRAL Global Summit on Digital Trade and Digital Platforms (Dubai, 8–9 December 2025).

Among other things, this stream will focus on:

Digital platforms in international trade (including the concept of “digital platform” and platforms significant for trade);
Platform operators as a new actor in international trade and the different roles they may play;
Contractual aspects of digital platforms; and
The role of private law in balancing the rights and obligations of platform operators and users, including intersections with regulatory regimes.

The outcomes of the Colloquium, together with other exploratory work conducted by the secretariat, will be reported to the Commission in 2026 for consideration and guidance on possible next steps.