INTERNATIONAL SALES LAW AND ITS INTERPRETATION

Main Article Content

MIKLÓS KIRÁLY

Abstract

The study reviews and compares the sources of uniform substantive law on international sales and contracts, to give an overview of the methods elaborated to interpret them. Have uniform law instruments hammered out a common solution for their interpretation? They have gradually confronted with the problem of interpretation and developed the rules governing interpretation, moving away from the definition of the content of some specific legal concepts towards abstract principles of construction, such as the international character of the instrument. The most influential in this area has been the regulatory approach of the Vienna Sales Convention. However, there are still distinctions in relation to the possible role of private international law (conflict of laws), more precisely the role of the national law designated by private international law, in filling loopholes.

Article Details

Section
Articles

References

Berman, P.S. ‘The inevitable legal pluralism within universal harmonization regimes: the case of the CISG’ (2016) 21 Uniform Law Review 23-40

Bogdan, M. Private International Law as Component of the Law of the Forum. (The Hague: Brill- Nijhoff, 2012)

Bonell, M. J. ‘The CISG, European Contract Law and the Development of World Contract Law’ (2008) 56 The American Journal of Comparative Law 1-28

Bonell, M. J. ‘The law governing international commercial contracts and the actual role of the UNIDROIT Principles’ (2018) 23 Uniform Law Review 15-41

Booysen, H. ‘The International Sale of Goods’ (1991-1992) 71 The 17 S. Afr. Y.B. Int’l L. 71-89

Denning, Lord, The Discipline of Law (London: Butterworths, 1979)

Dennis, J.M. ‘Modernizing and harmonizing international contract law: the CISG and the UNIDROIT Principles continue to provide the best way forward’ (2014) 19 Uniform Law Review 114-151

Eörsi, Gy. ‘The Hague Conventions of 1964 and the International Sale of Goods’ (1969) 11 Acta Juridica, 321-354

Gomez, F. Some Law and Economics of Harmonizing European Private Law, in Arthur S. Hartkamp – Martijn, W. Hesselink – Ewoud, Hondius – Chantal, Mak – Edgar Du Perron (eds), Towards a European Civil Code. 4th revised and expanded edition. (The Hague: Kluwer, 2010) 401-426

Hofmann, N., ‘Interpretation Rules and Good Faith as Obstacles to the’UK's Ratification of the CISG and to the Harmonization of Contract Law in Europe’ (2010) 22 Pace International Law, 145-181

Lando, O., Beale, H. (eds), Principles of European Contract Law. Parts I and II, (The Hague: Kluwer, 2000)

Lando, O., Clive, E., Prüm, A. Zimmerman, R., (eds): Principles of European Contract Law. Part III. (The Hague: Kluwer, 2003)

Lazerow, H. L., ‘Uniform Interpretation of CISG’ (2019) 52 The International Lawyer 369-392

Lenaerts, K. Gutiérrez-Fons, J. A., To Say What the Law of the EU Is: Methods of Interpretation and the European Court of Justice, EUI Working Papers, AEL 2013/9, Academy of European Law, Distinguished Lectures of the Academy

Magnus, U., Mankowski, P. Rome I Regulation, Commentary, European Commentaries on Private International Law, ECPIL, Volume II (Cologne-Munich: Otto Schmidt, 2017)

Mankowski, P., Commercial Law. Article by Article Commentary. (Baden-Baden – München – Oxford: Beck, Hart, Nomos, 2019)

O’Hara O’ Connor, E., ‘The Role of the CISG in promoting healthy jurisdictional competition for contract law’ (2016) 21 Uniform Law Review 41-59

Rabel, E., ‘A Draft of an International Law of Sales’ (1938) 5 The University of Chicago Law Review 543-565

Schlechtriem, P.H., Schwenzer, I., Commentary on the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG), edited by Schwenzer, I. 4th ed. (Oxford: OUP, 2016)

Schroeter, U., ‘Backbone or Backyard of the Convention? The CISG’s Final Provisions’ in Camilla B. Andersen, Ulrich G. Schroeter (eds), Sharing international commercial law across national boundaries: Festschrift for Albert H. Kritzer on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. (London: Wildy, Simmonds and Hill, 2008) 425-469

Schroeter, U., ‘Gegenwart und Zukunft des Einheitskaufrecht‘, (2017) 81 Rabel‘s Zeitschrift, 32-76

Schwenzer, I., Global Unification of Contract Law. Uniform Law Review, (2016) 21 60-74

Symeonides, S. C., ’Contracts subject to non-state norms’ (2006) 54 The American Journal of Comparative Law, 209-23

Thoma, I., ‘Relations between Conflict of Laws Rules and Uniform Law’ (2000) 53 RHDI, 169-188

Tunc, A., Commentary of the Hague Conventions of 1st July 1964 on the International Sale of Goods and on the Formation of Contracts of Sale, The Hauge, 1966, https://iicl.law.pace.edu/sites/default/files/cisg_files/tunc.html (downloaded 08.04.2022)

Vassileva, R., ‘Autonomous Interpretation of Uniform Commercial Law:

The East-West European Divide’ (2018) 29 European Business Law Review 885-906

Viscasillas, P., P., ‘Interpretation and gap-filling under the CISG: contrast and convergence with the UNIDROIT Principles’ (2017) 22 Uniform Law Rev 4-28

Vogenauer, S. ed., Commentary on the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (PICC). 2nd ed., (Oxford: OUP, 2015)

Winship, P., ‘Private International Law and the U.N. Sales Convention, Cornell’ (1988) 21 International Law Journal 487-533. 494

Draft laws and Reports

Common European Sales Law, CESL, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on Common European Sales Law, COM(2011)0635 final

Digest on the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (Munich: Sellier, European Law Publishers, 2004)

Statement of the European Law Institute on the Proposal for a Regulation on a Common European Sales Law COM(2011)635 final (Vienna: European Law Institute, 2012)

UNCITRAL, HCC and UNIDROIT Legal Guide to Uniform Instruments in the Area of International Commercial Contracts, with a Focus on Sales. (Vienna: United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, Hague Conference on Private International Law, 2021) 85

UNIDROIT, League of Nations, Draft of an International Law of the Sales of Goods. (Rome: La Libreria Dello Stato,1935) (1935 UNIDROIT Draft)

UNIDROIT, Projet D'Une Loi Uniforme sur la Vente Internationale Des Objets Mobiliers Corporels' and 'Draft Uniform Law on International Sales of Goods (Corporeal Movables)'. In L'Unification du Droit = Unification of Law: A general survey of work for the unification of private law (Drafts and Conventions) (Rome: UNIDROIT,1948) 103-159. (1939 UNIDROIT Draft)

United Nations Report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Forty-fifth session (25 Ju–e - 6 July 2012) General Assembly Official Records Sixty-seventh session, Supplement No. 17 A/67/17 V.12-55154 33

Laws and Conventions

Convention relating to a Uniform Law on the International Sale of Goods (ULIS), signed at The Hague, on 1 July 1964

Convention Relating to a Uniform Law on the Formation of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (ULFIS), signed at The Hague, on 1 July 1964

UNIDROIT Convention on International Factoring, Ottawa, 28 May 1988

UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, (Rome: UNIDROIT, 2016) (UPICC)

United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), signed at Vienna on 11 April 1980