Mr. Renaud Sorieul

Renaud Sorieul is the Principal Legal Officer at the International Trade Law Division (ITLD) of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, which functions as the substantive secretariat for the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). He serves as Deputy to the Director. Since he joined the UNCITRAL secretariat in 1989, he was actively involved in the UNCITRAL Working Group on International Payments, which prepared the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Credit Transfers (adopted in 1992). He then served as Secretary of the UNCITRAL Working Group on Electronic Commerce, which prepared the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce (adopted in June 1996) and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Signatures, (adopted in 2001). Since 2002, he is the Secretary of the UNCITRAL Working Group dealing with issues of arbitration and conciliation. More generally, as Head of the Legislative Branch, he is in charge of supervising the secretariat support to the standard-making activities of UNCITRAL.

From 1996 to 2004, Mr. Sorieul held the position of Legal Rapporteur elected by the Working Party on Facilitation of International Trade Procedures (WP.4), then Legal Liaison Rapporteur elected by the Centre for the Facilitation of Procedures and Practices for Administration, Commerce and Transport (CEFACT) of the Economic Commission for Europe . That United Nations body is responsible for the development of UN/EDIFACT electronic commerce standards.

A French national, Mr. Sorieul holds degrees in private law from the University of Paris (Paris II) and the diploma of the Paris Institute of Political Sciences. A member of the French judiciary since 1981, he served as a magistrate in first-degree law courts (1981-1985), and was subsequently appointed a member of the International Criminal Law Division at the Ministry of Justice (1985-1987). He was then seconded to serve as Head of the Legal Office of the Directorate-General of Energy and Mines, at the Ministry of Industry (1987-1989). Since the end of 1989, he has been serving as an international civil servant.

Mr. Sorieul has written and lectured extensively on various aspects of the work of UNCITRAL.