UN/CEFACT

Through the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) the UN support activities dedicated to improving the ability of business, trade and administrative organizations to effectively exchange products and relevant services. Its focus is to facilitate national and international transactions, through the simplification and harmonization of processes, procedures and information flows. This reinforces the growth of rules-based, open international trade.

Coordinating its work with international organizations, ICC contributes its world business proficiency to the following UN/CEFACT initiatives:

• Electronic Invoicing
• Unified Business Agreements and Contract (UBAC)

Electronic Invoicing
Recently, private companies have invested substantially to provide the technical infrastructure for electronic invoices. Meanwhile governments have ap proved the relevant laws and regulations designed to provide the necessary legal infrastructure (e.g. Directive 2001/115/EC amending Directive 77/388/EEC). The lack of usage of common international standards for layout and data requirements as well as differences in the local implementation of existing directives and recommendations avert a harmonisation in this field.

Through its different Task Forces, ICC has been actively following UN/CEFACT initiatives onelectronic invoicing and calls for participation in the UN/CEFACT ITPWG-TBG 15. The purpose of this project is to revise the “UN/CEFACT Recommendation on Aligned Invoice Layout Key for International Trade" (Recommendation 6) to ensure that it contains the elements required to exchange information electronically (e.g. data, electronic signature, layout).

Unified Business Agreements and Contract (UBAC)
Prior to message exchanges, the parties agree to do business electronically. This agreement consists of an infrastructure level agreement (e.g. EDI, ebXML) and a business level agreement (e.g. Business Collaboration Framework). UBAC is conducting research for legally enforceable business agreements.

The project amplifies the UN/CEFACT Business Process Working Group efforts to develop a framework for E-Businesses defining their external information interchanges and related business activities as a means of a Business Collaboration Framework. UBAC extends the support for executable E-Business relationships through agreements and contracts. It rescheduled the target date for the end of the requirements phase to end of February 2004.