ANNOTATED TEXT OF CISG
Article 13

For the purposes of this Convention "writing" includes telegram and telex.

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
  
• Editorial analysis of this article with cross-references to related subjects [not yet available]
  
• Use of the UNIDROIT Principles to help interpret CISG Article 13
• Editorial remarks: Andrea L. Charters [U.S.]
• Use of the Principles of European Contract Law to help interpret CISG article 13
  • Editorial remarks: Ulrich G. Schroeter [Germany]
  • Match-ups with Continental and Common Law domestic rules, doctrine and jurisprudence

• Roadmap to the legislative history of this article
• Chronology of development of Article 13 at the 1980 Vienna Diplomatic Conference
• Considerations that led to the drafting of Article 13
• [No Secretariat Commentary exists (text created at Diplomatic Conference)]
• [No match-up of this article with the 1978 draft exists]
• [No Hague Convention antecedent to this provision]

• CASES INVOLVING CISG ARTICLE 13
  • Computer list of annotated cases
  • Case annotations plus other data

• For a companion report on CISG case law and other material, go to Unilex: click for description of and link to this excellent service

• See also:
  • UNCITRAL digest

• Selected monographs and anthologies
• Comments on Article 13 from seminal 1986 text by Peter Schlechtriem [Germany]
• Comments on Article 13 from monograph by Jacob S. Ziegel [Canada]

• Comments on Article 13 by Jerzi Rajski [Poland] in 1987 Bianca-Bonell Commentary on the International Sales Law
• Comments on Article 13 by John O. Honnold [U.S.] in the 3rd ed. (1999) of the most frequently cited text on the CISG: Uniform Law for International Sales

• Comments on Article 13 in December 2000 text by Joseph Lookofsky [Denmark / U.S.]
• Commentarios al Articulo 13 sobre textos de 2001 por Pilar Perales [España]

• See also the helpful Enderlein & Maskow text (cited below under the words and phrases section of this Annotated Text material)
• Citations to materials on this article in other texts (selected texts only)
• Selected law journal articles and other commentaries
  • Siegfried Eiselen [South Africa], Electronic commerce and the U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) 1980, 6 EDI Law Review (1999) 21-46 [explanation of why EDI, e-mail and fax are also encompassed by the article 13 definition of "writing"]

  • Jennifer E. Hill [U.S.], The Future of Electronic Contracts in International Sales: Gaps and Natural Remedies under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, Vol. 2 No 1 (Fall 2003) 1-34, available online at <http://www.law.northwestern.edu/journals/njtip/v2/n1/>
  • Supplementary list of citations to Article 13 commentaries: Unilex citations*

    * Most members of the Autonomous Network of CISG Websites also offer bibliographies. Many are tailored, concentrating on commentaries by authors from or writing on CISG issues of special interest to specific countries or regions; some, e.g. CISG online are general and extensive; some, e.g., CISG-Belgium and CISG-Finland also list commentaries by individual articles of the CISG.

  • To identify other relevant commentaries, go to the cisgw3 Bibliography and Bibliography Search Form [general provisions is a search form entry you may wish to consider]

    Bibliography citations on general provisions

    We also encourage you to tailor your own cisgw3 bibliography search to the specific aspect of this article that you are researching.*

    * The cisgw3 bibliography contains over 500 pages of citations. Analyzing these listings can pay dividends.

Links to related articles

Attention to related articles and to the CISG in its entirety is important. This is an autonomous law, i.e., it is meant to be construed within its four corners. When considering aspects of the CISG, because this law relies heavily on general principles, one ought to look at related provisions and the CISG in its entirety.

• Go to Annotated Text of Article 96 [Declaration by Contracting State preserving its domestic requirements as to form]

Words, phrases and concepts

• The Enderlein & Maskow text is a good place to commence words and phrases research. Click for their analysis of words, phrases and concepts in this article.

  See also:

• "writing". "Mr. Klingsporn [W. Germany], introducing [the text that became Article 13], said that a definition of the term 'writing' was of importance in the application of some provisions of the . . . Convention, such as article [29(2)]. It would avoid dispute if it was made clear in that instance that if one party submitted a proposal for modification of a contract by a telegram which the other accepted by the same means, the requirement for any modification to be in writing had been complied with. His delegation's amendment followed the definition of 'writing' which appeared in article 1, paragraph 3(g) of the Convention on the Limitation Period in the International Sale of Goods". OR 269, para. 71 [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]

• electronic communications. For an authoritative ruling on electronic communications and Article 13, go to CISG-AC Opinion no. 1, Electronic Communication under CISG, 15 August 2003. Rapporteur: Professor Christina Ramberg, Gothenburg, Sweden
• 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

For a Doctoral thesis on "Reasonableness" in International Commercial Law, go to Guillaume Weiszberg, Le "Raisonnable" en Droit du Commerce International [pour le doctorat en droit de l’Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), 7 novembre 2003]