The Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment : a Driving Force for International Asset-Based Financing

Abstract

Friday 16 November 2001 – a day to be remembered in the annals of transnational commercial lawmaking when, at a Diplomatic Conference in the beautiful city of Cape Town, no fewer than 20 States (just under one-third of the total number represented at the Conference), followed subsequently by two others, signed the Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment (the Convention) and the Protocol on Matters specific to Aircraft Equipment (the Aircraft Equipment Protocol).1 There was a proposal to include the name of UNIDROIT in the title, as had been done with the 1988 Conventions on International Factoring and International Financial Leasing, but in a gracious gesture the Secretary-General of UNIDROIT, Professor Herbert KRONKE, expressed the wish that in tribute to the Conference host, the Government of South Africa, the Convention should become informally known as the Cape Town Convention. The tribute was well deserved. The South African Government organised a Conference that was truly superb in every way, from the courtesy and efficiency of all the arrangements and hard work of the staff to the warm and generous hospitality, all of which did so much to engender a feeling of mutual goodwill among the Conference delegates.