José Angelo Estrella Faria is the Secretary-General of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (Unidroit). He was appointed by the Unidroit Governing Council in 2008 and confirmed for a second term in 2013. Until October 2008, he was a Senior Legal Officer with the Secretariat of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), in Vienna, where he had worked since February 1996. Mr. Faria was the Secretary of UNCITRAL Working Group I (Privately Financed Infrastructure projects) during the preparation of the UNCITRAL Legislative Guide and the UNCITRAL Model Legislative Provisions on Privately Financed Infrastructure Projects, adopted in 2001 and 2003, respectively. He was also the Secretary of UNCITRAL Working Group IV (Electronic Commerce) during the negotiation of the UN Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts, adopted in 2005. As a Senior Legal Officer, between October 2005 and October 2008, he supervised the secretariat support to UNCITRAL Working Group III (Transport Law) during the final years of negotiation of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea (“Rotterdam Rules”). Prior to UNCITRAL, Mr. Faria had worked at the General Legal Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs, in New York, from 1992 to 1996. Before joining the UN, Mr. Faria had worked as an attorney in private practice in Brazil specialised in commercial and trade law matters. Mr. Faria graduated from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre, Brazil) and holds a Master on European Law from the Europa Institut der Universität des Saarlandes (Saarbrücken, Germany). He has published various articles and books on legal harmonisation, commercial law and international law. He is member of the American Law Institute, the European Law Institute and the International Law Association. He lectures at the University of Vienna and the Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli (LUISS), in Rome, and is a Honorary Professor of the University of International Business and Economics(UIBE), in Beijing.