The inaugural session of the Global Digital Trade and Digital Platforms Forum, launched by the Ministry of Economy and Tourism in collaboration with the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), took place on December 8 and 9, 2025. This event brought together over 300 participants, including ministers, government officials, legal experts, innovators from the private sector, policymakers, senior executives, global digital platform operators, and leading technology companies, along with representatives from international technical teams and universities specializing in digital trade and platforms from more than 17 countries.
The forum sessions aimed at creating a new roadmap for developing a comprehensive and competitive legislative framework for digital trade and platforms on both regional and global levels. This would be achieved by leveraging the commercial law through modern technology in the UAE, aligning with the rapid transformations in the digital economy. The sessions focused on assessing the current legislative landscape, identifying gaps, and addressing challenges posed by the increasing volume of digital transactions.
The forum provided a comprehensive assessment of the viability of establishing a unified legal framework governing digital trade and platforms, offering a legislative reference to assist countries and judicial bodies in aligning their legal policies and clarifying the rules of engagement in the digital environment. This would support a clearer governance mechanism in a rapidly evolving global digital context.
Discussion Sessions
On the first day, the agenda featured three discussion sessions. The initial session, titled “From E-commerce to Digital Trade and Platform Governance: Legal Tools for a New Economy,” covered vital topics in the digital landscape, including platform governance from e-commerce to digital trade, digital banking, regulation of “Buy Now Pay Later” (BNPL) services, blockchain applications, and challenges related to compliance and interoperability of cross-border payments.
Another session titled “Trust, Tokens, and Transactions: The Future of Banking and Digital Finance” explored shifts driven by modern financial technology, particularly the integration of smart products with digital services. It emphasized the growing role of artificial intelligence in enhancing compliance standards, provider responsibilities, and consumer expectations. Speakers discussed AI applications in logistics, fraud prevention, and improving user experiences.
The third discussion session, “Accelerated Transformations in Smart Goods and Integrated Digital Services,” examined the integration between smart goods and digital services.
On the second day of the forum, three additional discussion sessions and a roundtable meeting were held, commencing with an opening address by Anna Jobin Britt, Secretary of UNCITRAL. She emphasized the strong connection between the forum’s activities and UNCITRAL’s exploratory efforts to develop a unified legal framework for digital trade and platforms, highlighting the importance of a discussion paper prepared by the UNCITRAL secretariat to guide and focus discussions on key legal issues.
The session “The Importance of Platforms in Creating Digital Spaces for International Trade” highlighted the growing role of platform operators in establishing digital trade environments and explored the most significant types of platforms for international commerce, along with the role of operators in facilitating and overseeing commercial activities via these platforms.
The second session, “Unified Legal Legislation: Contracts and Operating Digital Platforms,” addressed the need for a cohesive legal framework governing contractual relationships on digital platforms, with speakers noting that digital platforms depend on a network of interconnected contracts.
The Role of Contracts
The final session, titled “The Role of Contracts in Governing Digital Platforms,” explored how stakeholders can benefit from these legal responses to enhance platform governance. Featured speakers included Dr. Chatchai Mitrapan, Executive Director of the Electronic Transaction Development Agency in Thailand; Hu Bing, a partner at King & Wood Mallesons; and Christoph Busch from the European Law Institute (ELI).
The session focused on ELI’s model rules for electronic platforms to clarify how the contractual framework interacts with local and international legislation, aiming to enhance global governance of digital platforms.