The CISG and Its Impact on National Legal Systems by Franco Ferrari (ed) and CISG Methodology by André Janssen and Olaf Meyer (eds)
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2009.00772.x |
| Author | Michael Bridge |
| Date | 01 September 2009 |
| Published date | 01 September 2009 |
REVIEWS
Franco Ferrar i (ed), The CISG and Its Impact on National Legal Systems,
Munich:Sellier, 2008, 489 pp, pb h79.00.
Andre
ŁJanssen a nd Olaf Meyer ( eds), CISG Methodolog y,Munich:Sellier, 2009,
395 pp, pb h69.00.
The United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods1980 (com-
monlyabbreviated to CISG and sometimes referred toas the Vienna Convention)
has now been in force since1988 and has been adopted by 71countries represent-
ing about two-thirds or three-quarters of the world’s trade. Those countries are
located in everycontinent but do not include the United Kingdom,which is the
largest economy standing outside the ranks of Contracting States, where it is
joined by Brazil, India andTurkey.The Department of Trade and Industry (super-
seded ¢rst bythe Department of Business Enterprise and Regulation and now by
the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) has come out in favour of
adopting the Convention, but, al thoughopposition has be en expressed in certain
in£uential quarters, the main reason for the failure of the United Kingdom to
adopt the CISG seems to lie in the absence of politicalwill that stems from a lack
of enthusiasm for the CISG in national trading and professional constituencies.
The amountof literatureon the CISG is byany standard large: theCISG stands
at the epicentre of a global academic writing industry (see http://cisgw3.law.
pace.edu fora near-comprehensive bibliographyof 8,000 items, which is regularly
updated). To the many monographs on the subject must now be added The
CISG and Its Impact on National Legal Systems and CISG Methodology.InThe CISG
and Its Impact, an attempt is made to assess the impact of the CISG on 23 national
legal systems by means of a standard questionnaire. The national reports are
supplemented by two lengthy essays, the ¢rst being a general report (Ferrari)
and the second a special report on the impact of the CISG on EU legisla-
tion (Troiano). One measure of the impact of the CISG lies in the way it
might in£uence domestic legislators, courts and lawyers in the way they view,
state and reform their own national law. More prosaically, the degree of knowl-
edge and understanding of lawyers, courts and students about the CISG in the
area of its application is the subject here of review. The heart of the matter, how-
ever, consists of two issues.The ¢rst is the extent to which the CISG applies in
practice and the second is uniform application by courts and tribunals free
from a tendency to assimilate it to domestic law, which would spell the death of
uniformity.
On the ¢rst of these issues, the adoption of the CISG by a Contracting State
does not vouchsafe that it will be applied in the courtsof that State to transactions
caught by the CISG rat ione materiae. One of the questions faced by national corre-
spondents concerned the extent to whichpractitioners excluded the CISG. Article
6 of the Convention allows contracting parties to oust the CISG in whole or in
part. It is a notorious characteristic of the commodities trades (wheat, soya, oil,
r2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation r2009 The Modern LawReview Limited.
Published by BlackwellPublishing, 9600 Garsington Road,Oxford OX4 2DQ,UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
(2009) 7 2(5) 8 67^881
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