DEBUNKING A MYTH – INVESTIGATING THE ACTUAL USE OF THE CISG AND EVALUATING ITS POLICY GOALS

Abstract

The United Nation’s Convention on Contacts for the International Sale of Goods (the CISG) is an international uniform law applicable to the international contracts for the sale of goods. With some 90 countries having acceded the CISG, it has been praised as one of the most successful international treaties to bring some uniformity to domestic laws. However, some countries (e.g., the US) have not reported as many CISG cases as was expected. The currently prevalent opinion argues that a small number of CISG cases reported in a country is attributable to lawyers’ tendency to opt out the application of the CISG in that country. This thesis will introduce and examine a new set of data as to the use of the CISG, disprove the currently prevalent opinion, and provide a new account as to why some countries report a larger number of CISG cases than others.