An Examination of the Applicability and Propriety of the Vienna Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

Abstract

The unprecedented surge in international commerce created the need for a uniform law on the international sale of goods. Owing to the wide difference in various national laws governing sales transactions, the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) was created to bridge this gap and to assist in promoting international trade. The CISG provides a set of uniform rules governing the formation, performance and remedies for breach of contracts for the international sale of goods within its scope. Its purpose is to provide a modern, uniform and fair regime for contracts for the international sale of goods thereby ensuring certainty in commercial exchanges. Particularly, the Convention applies to contracts for sale of goods between parties whose places of business are in different Contracting States, subject to the right of the parties to opt out in whole or part from the Convention. By all counts, the CISG represents the international community's most ambitious effort to promote efficiency and sustained growth of international trade. The innovations made by the CISG have been praised for decades however the loopholes inherent in the Convention have left parties to international sales contracts with so many challenges in their commercial dealings. This article attempts to examine the impact and relevance of the CISG to international sales transactions since it came into force. It examines among others, issues pertaining to the applicability of the CISG vis-a-vis its many pitfalls which constitute very serious challenges to parties whose sales negotiations fall within the purview of the Convention. This article concludes that whilst the CISG is a remarkable improvement from what used to be the status quo in international trade, it is nonetheless a vague document which did not coherently address the questions that necessitated its creation.