ANNOTATED TEXT OF CISG
Article 47

(2) Unless the buyer has received notice from the seller that he will not perform within the period so fixed, the buyer may not, during that period, resort to any remedy for breach of contract. However, the buyer is not deprived thereby of any right he may have to claim damages for delay in performance.

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
  
• See Mark B. Wessman, 70 Tulane Law Review (1996) 1783, 1791 (describing Nachfrist as a "potential danger point" that "the uninitiated American lawyer accustomed to working with the UCC will find surprising or unfamiliar."); see also E. Allan Farnsworth, Lausanner Kolloquium, Zürich: Schulthess (1985) 83, 105 ("Nachfrist -- We don't understand it, we never heard of it, but we like it"); and Celia R. Taylor, 33 Wake Forest Law Review (1998) 838, 904 (regarding "Nachfrist [as] a valuable addition to the universe of authorized self-help")
• 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 47 [partial presentation]
• Use of the Principles of European Contract Law to help interpret CISG articles 47 and 49(1)(b)
  • Match-ups with Continental and Common Law domestic rules, doctrine and jurisprudence

• 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 47 at the 1980 Vienna Diplomatic Conference
• Summary of UNCITRAL legislative history
• Hague Convention antecedents
  • Article 47 match-up with ULIS
  • ULIS (full-text) and André Tunc Commentary on ULIS

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

• Comments on Article 47 from seminal 1986 text by Peter Schlechtriem [Germany]

• Comments on Article 47 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

• John C. Duncan, Jr. [United States], Nachfrist was Ist? Thinking globally and acting locally: Considering time extension principles of the U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods in revising the Uniform Commercial Code, 2000 Brigham Young University Law Review 1363-1411

• Harry M. Flechtner [United States], excerpt from Remedies Under the New International Sales Convention: The Perspective from Article 2 of the U.C.C., 8 Journal of Law and Commerce (1988) 53-108

• Anette Gärtner [Germany (Edinburgh Law School)], Review of "Nachfrist" under CISG (and other remedies) and under German and English law, (Pace essay: June 2000)

• Ericson Kimbel [U.S.] Nachfrist Notice and avoidance under the CISG, 18 Journal of Law and Commerce (1999) 301-331 [features practical illustrations of the manner in which the Nachfrist procedure may be applied]

• Peter A. Piliounis, excerpt from The Remedies of Specific Performance, Price Reduction and Additional Time (Nachfrist) under the CISG: Are these worthwhile changes or additions to English Sales Law? (Cambridge 1999)

• Alison E. Williams, excerpt from Forecasting the potential impact of the Vienna Sales Convention on international law in the United Kingdom (Pace essay: October 2000)

• To identify other relevant commentaries, go to Bibliography and Bibliography Search Form [nachfrist and remed* (stem for remedy/remedies) 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

• By availing himself of Article 47, buyer can in certain circumstances set the stage for avoidance of the contract in situations in which this is not otherwise permitted; go to Annotated Text of Article 49 [Buyer's right to avoid the contract]. For counterpart provision on seller's right to fix a "Nachfrist" period, go to Annotated Text of Article 63

Words, phrases and concepts

• "fix" (47(1)). "Mr. Kuchibhotla (India) . . . The word 'fix' presuppose[s] a written or oral notice, which [is] governed by the provisions of article [27]." OR 339, para. 8 [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]; but see notice not governed by receipt rule of Article 27 (buyer's notice fixing additional final period for performance [47(1)]): for commentary on this and other notices, go to Peter Schlechtriem [Germany], Effectiveness and Binding Nature of Declarations (Notices, Requests or Other Communications) under Part II and Part III of the CISG, Cornell Review of the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (Kluwer 1995) 95-114

• reasonableness [47(1)]: In addition to being 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