July 26-27, 1999
Montreal, Canada

Speaker Biography

Harold Burman

Office of the Legal Advisor
U.S. Department of State

Hal Burman is the Executive Director of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Private International Law, and senior attorney at the Office of Legal Adviser, Department of State. His work concentrates on the international unification of private law, and he has headed United States delegations to the United Nations, the Organization of American States, UNIDROIT and other bodies on economic and commercial law negotiations, including bank guarantees and letters of credit, law applicable to contracts, cross-border insolvency, and secured interest financing. His work involves coordination with legal interests in countries from all major systems.

Hal has been an active promoter of electronic commerce and the migration to computer friendly law since the 1980's. Projects included international electronic funds transfers, the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce, and other initiatives in the field. Recently, this has included proposed globally operative electronic registries linked to national input systems and accessible from any point in the six official UN languages.

He has a JD from the University of Chicago and has done post-graduate work in comparative law.