Law Commons^™

Is The Cisg Benefiting Anybody?, Gilles Cuniberti

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Convention on Contracts for International Sale of Goods (CISG) was supposed to increase legal certainty and reduce the transaction costs of international buyers and sellers. This Article argues that none of these goals has been met. A survey of 181 court decisions and arbitral awards applying the CISG shows that the vast majority of international buyers and sellers do not address the issue of the law governing their contracts, irrespective of the value at stake. Although the data is not easy to interpret, it follows that international buyers and sellers are simply not concerned with the legal regime governing …