International Trade Terms (Standard Terms for Contracts for the International Sale of Goods) by Dr. A.H. Hermann

Abstract

International Trade Terms (Standard Terms for Contracts for the International Sale of Goods), by Dr A.H. Hermann. Published by Graham & Trotman/Martinus Nijhoff, London and Dordrecht (with the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London) , (1993, xviii and 197 pp., incl. Table of Contents and Index.) Hardback. Price UK £53; Dfl. 165.00; US $90. First there were INCOTERMS, initially formulated in 1936 and now in their 1990 edition. Now, and additionally, there are to be INTRATERMS. This book is an elaboration of what have been coined International Trade Terms, a new body of standard contractual terms for the international sale of goods formulated by Dr Adolf H. Hermann, whom many readers will remember as Legal Correspondent of the Financial Times , but who is now D.J. Freeman Senior Research Fellow in International Trade Law at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Like INCOTERMS, the new terms will operate by contractual incorporation. It is, however, not the intention that the new terms compete with INCOTERMS, so that the market is compelled to make a choice. The new code of terms contemplates the possibility of contracts incorporating both INCOTERMS and INTRATERMS and expressly provide the way such a double incorporation is to be accommodated, with INCOTERMS taking priority. An eye is also directed to the UN Convention on Contracts for International Sale of Goods (Vienna Convention), and provision again made for the relation which is to exist between the two (see para. 104). The new terms are examined in the five chapters of the book, presumably following the main divisions made in the code itself, and titled: General Provisions, Contract for the Sale of Goods, Transportation of Sold Goods, Abbreviated Contractual Terms and Resolution of Disputes. Each paragraph of the code is followed by an explanatory note, with the more important expanded to include comparisons with chosen national jurisdictions, with the Vienna Convention and a miscellany of other sources. English law however prevails as the principal source of comparative reference, reflecting its significant position in international trade. The overriding object of the exercise is to provide a body …