Excerpt from John O. Honnold, Uniform Law for International Sales under the 1980 United Nations Convention, 3rd ed. (1999), page 541. Reproduced with permission of the publisher, Kluwer Law International, The Hague.

This postscript is out of order but (as a lame excuse) so was preparation of the Preamble. UNCITRAL did not prepare a preamble nor was this matter considered by the committees of the Vienna Conference that considered the Convention’s substantive provisions (See §10, supra). Instead, a preamble was first considered and prepared by the Drafting Committee on April 9, two days before adjournment of the Conference (O.R. 154); by this time discussion of the Convention’s substantive provisions had been completed. On April 10 the Drafting Committee’s proposal was adopted by the Conference Plenary without substantive discussion (O.R. 219–220, 231). At this point only formalities remained and the Conference adjourned on April 11.

Under these circumstances the Preamble serves as a hortatory statement of reasons for accepting the uniform law but can hardly be given weight in construing its provisions. The Convention sets forth the rules for interpreting its provisions (Art. 7, §§85–103.1, supra). Article 7 and the other provisions of the Convention were discussed at length in UNCITRAL and at the Diplomatic Conference; the Preamble scarcely provides a basis for modifying the understandings embodied in the Convention’s provisions.[page 541]