First Paragraph
After nearly ten years, an international jurisprudence of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) has begun to develop, impacting courts and practitioners in the United States and abroad. Increasingly, foreign courts are interpreting the CISG in ways which are unfamiliar to their American counterparts, forming an important and nuanced jurisprudence. Where previously courts and practitioners could look to merely the text of the CISG, supplemented with the work of eminent scholars, now practitioners and domestic courts are increasingly forced to consider how foreign jurisdictions have applied the CISG. Clearly, the foreign courts have begun to better define the contours of the CISG's model of commercial transactions. As a sui generis entity, the CISG is neither wholly of the Civil Law nor of the Common Law, but borrows from both-and yet is also something entirely distinct. The CISG is conscious of vast differences in language, tradition, and distant geography. It grants contracting parties the primary responsibility to define contract terms, but because of the vast differences encountered in international trade, pact unt sevada is strongly presumed, and aggrieved parties are likely to get remedies other than damages. While some of these principles are explicit in the convention, they have become increasingly apparent in actual cases interpreting the CISG.
Recommended Citation
Recent Developments: Nonconforming Goods Under the CISG - What's a Buyer to Do?, 16 Penn St. Int'l L. Rev. 319 (1998).