Djakhongir Saidov, THE LAW OF DAMAGES IN INTERNATIONAL SALES: THE CISG AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS Oxford: Hart Publishing (www.hartpub.co.uk), 2008. xxvii + 294 pp. ISBN 9781841137421. £75.
| Published date | 01 September 2009 |
| DOI | 10.3366/E1364980909000766 |
| Author | Martin J Doris |
| Date | 01 September 2009 |
| Pages | 540-542 |
Dr Saidov sets out with the ambitious aim of exploring the remedy of damages in international sales law by considering the values and policy goals underlying the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, and the Principles of European Contract Law (PECL). A number of useful insights are further drawn selectively from English case law and arbitral awards. With such a broad scope, the initial concern would be that the author would fail to achieve his goal. However, Saidov has produced a detailed and highly readable text that considers in turn the methods of limiting damages, the determination of loss and the calculation of damages.
As the title of the book suggests, the primary emphasis rests upon the practical application of the damages provisions of the UN Convention, and there is a heavy focus on CISG case law. Of course, the Convention has had a rather difficult history in much of the Common Law world. Whilst the UK and Ireland appear determined not to ratify the CISG, recent decisions in the USA, and even more glaringly in Canada, have produced an alarming growth in what has been termed the “homeward trend”. US and Canadian courts have tended to defeat the CISG's own interpretative methodology by finding solutions to cases involving the Convention through the application of domestic law approaches. The non-accessibility of foreign judgments is often cited as a partial explanation, if not a defence, for continued judicial failings in not properly applying the Convention. This book therefore, in presenting an up-to-date reflection on a raft of foreign CISG decisions in the discrete field of damages, should serve to improve judicial decision-making generally. It may further serve to de-mystify the Convention for the average Common Lawyer and will hopefully encourage ever greater engagement with its provisions, particularly among students.
The first chapter, as well as setting out the structure of the book, provides a helpful overview of the CISG, the UNIDROIT Principles and PECL. It further discusses the key actors and primary harmonisation initiatives in the field of international commercial law. Indeed this first section will prove particularly useful as a student's introductory guide to the field. Where the book is at its most original and inventive, however, is in considering some of the more controversial types of loss. Chapter 3, for example, provides a...
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