[Op-ed] Boosting Trade through Legal Harmonisation

On 25 February 2020, the Business Times of Singapore, the country’s leading daily business newspaper, published an Op-ed by Asif Efrat, Associate Professor of government at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) at Herzliya, Israel, where he discussed the harmonisation of private laws being an underappreciated tool for tackling the trade crisis that the world is facing at present.

Titled Boosting Trade through Legal Harmonisation, Professor Efrat explained why legal harmonisation is a less costly and contentious tool to boost trade. Unlike preferential trade agreements, legal harmonisation is much less dependent on politics. Further, it offers flexibility as “the use of broad, open-ended standards allows significant variation in the application of the formally uniform law”.

ABLI is proud to be mentioned as an initiative set up to promote the convergence of business laws in Asia, contributing to global efforts led by prominent bodies such as the UN Commission on International Trade Law to promote harmonisation.

We sincerely hope there will be increased awareness and utilisation of legal harmonisation to address the myriad of trade issues confronting the world today, and we look forward to continuing our work with like-minded partners on this journey.