ANNOTATED TEXT OF CISG
Article 6

Legislative history || Case law || Scholarly writings || Links to related articles || Words and phrases || CISG (full-text)

Guide to this article

• UNCITRAL outline of issues present
  
• Editoral analysis of this article with cross-references to related subjects [not yet available]
  
• Secretariat Commentary (closest counterpart to an Official Commentary on this article)
  • Match-up of this article with the 1978 draft
  (to validate Secretariat Commentary)
• Use of the UNIDROIT Principles to help interpret CISG Article 6
  • Editorial analysis, Albert H. Kritzer [U.S.]
• Use of the Principles of European Contract Law to help interpret CISG article 6
  • Match-ups with Continental and Common Law domestic rules, doctrine and jurisprudence
• Determining the applicable law (freedom of choice/absence of choice): comparison with provisions of 1955 Hague Convention, and 1980 Rome Convention

• Roadmap to the legislative history of this article
• Legislative history of this article: long form
• Legislative history of this article: short form
  • Chronology of development of Article 6 at the 1980 Vienna Diplomatic Conference
• Summary of UNCITRAL legislative history
• Hague Convention antecedents
  • Article 6 match-up with Hague Convention antecedents (with illustrative citations to helpful ULIS case law)
  • ULIS (full-text) and André Tunc Commentary on ULIS
  • ULF (full-text)

• Michael Joachim Bonell & Fabio Liguori [Italy], excerpt from The UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods: A Critical Analysis of Current International Case Law - 1997 (Part 1), Uniform Law Review (1997) 385-395

• Martin Karollus [Austria], excerpt from Judicial Interpretation and Application of the CISG in Germany 1988-1994, Cornell Review of the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (1995) 51-94

• For further information on CISG case law (material not in this database), go to Unilex: click for a description of the contents of this service. Also of considerable utility are the compendium of case citations and the CISG bibliography contained in Michael R. Will, Twenty Years of International Sales Law Under the CISG: International Bibliography and Case Law Digest, Kluwer Law International (2000). Prof. Will's materials are presented on the CD-Rom edition of the database.

• Selected monographs and anthologies (English language)

• Comments on Article 6 from 1999 text by John O. Honnold [U.S.] [available in CD-ROM edition only]

• Comments on Article 6 from seminal 1986 text by Peter Schlechtriem [Germany]
• Comments on Article 6 from monograph by Jacob S. Ziegel [Canada]
• Citations to materials on this article in other texts (selected texts only)
• Selected law journal articles and other commentaries

• E. Allan Farnsworth [U.S.], Review of Standard Forms or Terms Under the Vienna Convention, 21 Cornell International Law Journal (1988) 439-447 [Commentary calls attention to an important cross-reference between article 4 and 6 ("Article 6 purports to give the parties an unqualified power to vary the effect of the Convention by agreement. On the other hand, article 4 makes it clear that, absent a contrary provision, the Convention does not affect any rule of domestic law dealing with the "validity" of a contract provision. Taken together, articles 6 and 4 create a tripartite hierarchy, with domestic law on validity at the top, the agreement of the parties in the middle, and the Convention at the bottom. The domestic law on validity continues to control the agreement of the parties, and both control the Convention.")]

• Franco Ferrari [Italy], excerpt from Selected Topics of the CISG in the Light of Judicial Application and Scholarly Writing, 15 Journal of Law and Commerce (1995) 1-126

• Rolf Herber [Germany], Stillschweigende Vereinbarung der Anwendung des UNWAVTRÜBK während des Prozesses [Tacit agreement to apply the CISG during the proceedings (or hearings) (comments on OLG Thüringer 26 May 1998) - in German], Transport- und Speditionsrecht "Internationales Handelsrecht" (2000) 29-30

• Robert Koch [Germany], Wider den formularäßigen Ausschluß des UN-Kaufrechts [Against the exclusion of the CISG on the basis of standard terms and conditions - in German], Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (2000) 910-915

• Burt A. Leete [U.S.], excerpt from 6 Temple International and Comparative Law Journal (1992) 193-215

• Peter Schlechtriem [Germany], excerpt from Uniform Sales Law: The Experience with Uniform Sales Laws in the Federal Republic of Germany, Juridisk Tidskrift (Stockholm) (1991/92) 1-28

• Peter Winship [U.S.], excerpt from Changing Contract Practices in the Light of the United Nations Sales Convention: A Guide for Practitioners, 29 International Lawyer (1995) 525-554

• To identify other relevant commentaries, go to Bibliography and Bibliography Search Form [autonomy (of the parties), freedom of contract ("pre/2" = instruction used to confine search to commentary titles with "freedom" and "contract" presented together) and sphere of application are search form entries you may wish to consider]

  Our bibliography contains thousands of citations in 24 languages; we encourage you to tailor your own bibliography search to the specific aspect of this article that you are researching.

Links to related articles

• Go to Annotated Text of Article 12 [Declaration by Contracting State preserving its domestic requirements as to form] (the only restriction on freedom of contract recited in Article 6)

• Go also to Annotated Text of Article 4 (its statement "unless otherwise expressly provided in this Convention, it is not concerned with . . . the validity of the contract" may provide another restriction on the freedom of contract granted under Article 6)

• And there may be additional restrictions on the freedom of contract of the parties, notwithstanding the sweeping language of Article 6, for example
  • Go to Annotated Text of Article 28 (instruction on what a court is not bound to do)

  • Go to Annotated Text of Articles 89 to 101 (the Final Provisions pertain to Contracting States, not parties)

Words, phrases and concepts

• Exclusion of the CISG: Diplomatic Conference colloquy:
  • The parties may expressly or impliedly exclude the application of this Convention (United Kingdom proposal at the Vienna Diplomatic Conference, rejected)

  • The parties may expressly exclude the application of this Convention (Pakistan proposal, rejected)

  • The parties may exclude the application of this Convention (language of the 1978 Draft, adopted). Mr. Loewe (Austria) [Chair of the First Committee] stated that "[f]or his own part he considered that exclusion of the application of the Convention, derogation from its provisions or variation of their effect could be either express or implied, that was also apparently the conclusion which had emerged from the preparatory work." OR 248, para. 4. Diplomatic Conference colloquy: OR 248-250, paras. 1-31 [OR = Official Records of the United Nations Conference on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, Vienna 10 March 11 April 1980, A/CONF.97/19]

  • For a minority position (argument in opposition to implied exclusion), go to Maureen T. Murphy, The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods: Creating Uniformity in International Sales Law, 12 Fordham International Law Journal (1989) 727-750 at 737-750

• reasonableness: Although not specifically mentioned in this article, reasonableness is a general principle of the CISG
  • For the definition of reasonableness recited in the Principles of European Contract Law and references to reasonableness in Continental and Common Law domestic rules, doctrine and jurisprudence, go to PECL article 1:302 and the comment and notes prepared for this provision

  • To drive home the correlation between the PECL's definition of reasonableness and the evident same meaning of this term to CISG legislators when they used the concept either specifically or as a general principle of the uniform law they drafted, see overview comments and comments that illustrate the similar manner in which this concept fits the CISG