To Boldly Go, Part II: Data as the CISG’s Next (but Probably Not Final) Frontier

Abstract

The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (‘CISG’) is an international sales law treaty concluded in 1980 and drafted with traditional (physical) goods trade in mind. While a significant body of scholarship has addressed its capacity to govern electronic software transactions, only limited commentary has explored the CISG’s digital application beyond software per se. ‘To Boldly Go, Part I’, this article’s counterpart, developed a specific legal framework for assessing the CISG’s capacity to regulate international trade in non-software data. This article now applies that framework, confirming the CISG is capable of governing non-software data trade, and uses that framework to resolve the currently unsettled question of whether cryptocurrency trade falls within the CISG’s scope. Since non-software data trade is becoming increasingly economically important, this article’s conclusions stand to benefit data traders as well as the practitioners advising them.