Excerpt from John O. Honnold, Uniform Law for International Sales under the 1980 United Nations Convention, 3rd ed. (1999), page 237. Reproduced with permission of the publisher, Kluwer Law International, The Hague.

§ 206 Article 30 introduces the reader to the scope of Chapter II and draws attention to the principal topics dealt with in the Chapter and the order of their presentation. (Chapter III—Obligations of the Buyer—has a similar chapeau (Art. 53).)

This introductory article is significant for its explicit statement of the central and unitary role that the Convention gives to the contract. The issue of a fragmented versus a unitary approach to the contract was introduced in the Overview (Ch. 2, supra at §24), and will be explored further under Article 31 at §207 and in connection with the Convention’s remedial system. (See the Introduction to Sec. III of this Chapter infra at §272; Art. 44 infra at §255.) The relation between the Contract and the Convention has been examined in the Overview (Ch. 1, supra at §2) and in the Commentary to Article 6, supra at §75.[2]

The fact that the Convention applies fully to sales of goods to be consummated by the delivery of documents is made explicit here in Article 30. See also Article 34, §§217–219, infra.[page 237]

FOOTNOTES: Chapter on Article 30

1.This article is substantially the same as Art. 28 of the 1978 Draft and is similar to ULIS 18.

2. Discussions of the obligations of the seller: Schlechtriem, Parker Colloq. Ch. 6, 1984; Schlechtriem, Com. (1998) 217–453; Ghestin, Les obligations du vendeur selon [CISG], 1 I. B. L. J. 5 (1988) (parallel texts, English and French). See also: Rep. S-G, "Obligations of the Seller," Annex II, paras, 69–71, IV Yearbook 45–46 Docy. Hist. 122–123 and the Commentary to Arts. 45 and 61; infra at §275 and §344.