UNCITRAL and Ukraine: Which of Its Texts Actually Apply

Cross-border disputes | JVS Law

UNCITRAL is the United Nations body that drafts the law of international trade. Three of the instruments it produced or looks after are already in force in Ukraine — and they apply to a contract with a Ukrainian counterparty whether or not anyone named them in the text.

This is the short version: what the Commission is, what Ukraine is actually bound by, and where each instrument leads in practice.

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law was created by General Assembly resolution 2205 (XXI) of 17 December 1966. Its work is narrow and practical: to reduce the differences between national laws that make cross-border trade expensive. It drafts conventions and model laws; states then adopt them, or do not.

Members are elected by the General Assembly for six-year terms, half the seats turning over every three years. The Commission began with 29 states, grew to 36 in 1973, to 60 in 2004, and to 70 since 2022. Ukraine is a member: the Commission’s own membership table records its terms as 2010–2014 and 2019–2031.

The Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. Ukraine’s Law on International Commercial Arbitration No. 4002-XII of 24 February 1994 is built on it. The Commission counts legislation based on the Model Law in 93 states and 127 jurisdictions. One detail is worth holding on to: Ukraine follows the 1985 text and has not taken the 2006 amendments. Foreign counsel who assume the newer wording — on interim measures, and on the form of the arbitration agreement — are reading a statute Ukraine never enacted.

The 1958 New York Convention. It is older than the Commission: adopted eight years before UNCITRAL existed. But the Commission has been its custodian ever since, and its case law is gathered in CLOUT. 172 states are parties; Ukraine has been one since 1960. This is the instrument that makes a foreign arbitral award enforceable here at all — the mechanics are in our guide to enforcing a foreign arbitral award in Ukraine.

The 1980 Vienna Convention on the international sale of goods (CISG). The one most often missed. Ukraine acceded on 3 January 1990 and the Convention entered into force for it on 1 February 1991; there are 97 states parties. It applies to a sale of goods between businesses in two contracting states by default — nobody has to name it — and it displaces national sales law unless the parties exclude it.

With one Ukrainian reservation that cannot be ignored. Under Articles 12 and 96, Ukraine declared that any provision allowing a sale contract, its modification or termination, or any offer or acceptance, to be made in a form other than writing does not apply where a party has its place of business in Ukraine — and the declaration has never been withdrawn. Plainly: an oral variation of a supply contract with a Ukrainian company does not take effect, however clear the correspondence around it.

Ukraine has not enacted the Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency of 1997, used by 62 states in 65 jurisdictions. There is therefore no ready route here for recognising a foreign insolvency proceeding, and a creditor has to work with what the general rules allow.

The Singapore Convention on Mediation is signed but not ratified — which is exactly why a mediated settlement still has to be routed through a court or an arbitral tribunal before it can be enforced. We set out both routes in what actually makes a mediated settlement enforceable in Ukraine.

Unifying a text is pointless if courts in different states read it differently. To hold that together the Commission created Case Law on UNCITRAL Texts (CLOUT) in 1988: a system for collecting and publishing court decisions and arbitral awards that apply UNCITRAL instruments, so a judge in one state can see how the same article has been read in another. It runs on a network of national correspondents designated by states — each watches their own courts, selects what matters and writes the abstracts.

Ukraine designated Gennadii Tsirat, Doctor of Laws and partner of Jurvneshservice, as its national correspondent for the 2017–2022 term, with the New York Convention and the Model Law as the subject matter. The Commission does not publish the list of correspondents — names are released on individual request — so this page records that designation and its dates, and does not claim a current one. His work on the same ground is collected in his books and papers on cross-border litigation and arbitration.

• Choosing the forum for a contract that is being signed now — ICC Rules or the ICAC Rules.
• How an arbitration actually runs in Ukraine, start to finish — our guide to international arbitration in Ukraine and the ICAC.
• An award already in hand — enforcement of a foreign arbitral award.

Originally published on 28 August 2017 as a note on the designation. Rewritten and expanded in August 2026; treaty statuses and membership are stated as at that date, from UNCITRAL’s own status pages.