UNCITRAL Asia Pacific Day Memorial Lecture & BNU International Expert Lecture Series (Number 9) was successfully held on November 25, 2025 at the Law School of Beijing Normal University.

Professor Xue Hong, Director of Beijing Normal University Institute for Internet Policy & Law, talked at the beginning that BNU is one of the CLOUT Partner Organizations and has been working closely with UNCITRAL and RCAP. Prof. Xue then invited Ms. Athita Komindr, Head of UNCITRAL Regional Center for Asia and Pacific (RCAP), to give the keynote speech. Although joining the event virtually, Ms. Komindr gave an energetic presentation, introducing the wide range of works conducted by the RCAP and briefing for the BNU students the possibility to apply for the UN internship. Ms. Komindr’s rick experience in capacity building and international engagement impressed all the audience. Prof. Xue later invited Dr. Luca Castellani, Legal Officer in the Secretariat of UNCITRAL, gave the keynote speech on the UNCITRAL Newest Model Law on Automatic Contracting (MLAC). Dr. Castellani is a long-time friend of BNU and has been working for a decade as the secretary of UNCITRAL Working Group IV (E-Commerce). He went through the history of e-commerce lawmaking at UNCITRAL from 1990s to 21 century and elaborated the legal impacts of all the key provisions of MLAC.

The speech was highly interesting to the students and many of them approached to ask questions and tried to interact with Dr. Castellani who also joined the event online. Despite the technical difficulties of online presentation, the whole event was very successfully completed. The graduate students and international exchange students from China, Italy, Tanzania, etc. reflected very positively to this fruitful and interactive academic experience.