The Cape Town Convention Academic Project is a joint undertaking between the University of Washington School of Law and the University of Oxford Faculty of Law. Its purpose is to facilitate the academic study and assessment of the Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment (the Cape Town Convention), together with its Protocols, for the benefit of scholars, practising lawyers, courts and governments. The Cape Town Convention is one of the most important and innovative international conventions ever to have been concluded in the field of transactional commercial law and has already secured nearly 50 ratifications. The project seeks to enhance the understanding and effective implementation of the treaty and advance its aims.

Information about the Cape Town Convention can be found on the websites of UNIDROIT, the legal depository of the treaty, and the Aviation Working Group, the founding sponsor of the project.

The main activities of the project are: the creation of a comprehensive digitized and searchable database of primary and secondary materials on the Convention and Protocols, the preparatory work leading to their adoption, and their implementation in national law, a journal, conferences, teaching materials, and law and economics assessment. The database and journal are being undertaken under the joint auspices of UNIDROIT. The Aviation Working Group is the founding sponsor of the project. The International Civil Aviation Organization and the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail are also cooperating with the project.

The project seeks to draw out and assess general principles and themes seen in the broader context of transnational commercial law, such as the relationship between commercial law reform and economic benefit, the relationship between international and national law, the interplay between private law and public law and the use of a system of opt-in and opt-out declarations to provide flexibility in the application of provisions so as to respect national sensitivities, and the role of electronic commerce, including the use of electronic registries.

The project started in July 2011 and will run for three years. Professor Louise Gullifer will be the Oxford University Academic Lead working with Professor Sir Roy Goode.

Contact Details

Cape Town Convention
Academic Project
University of Washington School of Law
William H. Gates Hall, Room 443
Box 353020
4293 Memorial Way
Seattle, WA 98195-3020

Jeffrey Wool, Executive Director
jeffrey.wool@awg.aero
+44 7841 000 447

Kyle Brown, Project Manager
kyleb22@uw.edu
(206) 221-9190

Jonathan A Eddy, Academic Lead
University of Washington School of Law
eddyj@uw.edu
(206) 616-5825

Sir Roy Goode, Academic Lead
University of Oxford Faculty of Law
roy.goode@law.ox.ac.uk

Link(s)

View the page for this research project
Interested in this subject? View our Transnational Commercial Law page.

published Friday 1 July 2011