ANNOTATED TEXT OF CISG
Article 71

(a) a serious deficiency in his ability to perform or in his creditworthiness; or

(b) his conduct in preparing to perform or in performing the contract.

(2) If the seller has already dispatched the goods before the grounds described in the preceding paragraph become evident, he may prevent the handing over of the goods to the buyer even though the buyer holds a document which entitles him to obtain them. The present paragraph relates only to the rights in the goods as between the buyer and the seller.

(3) A party suspending performance, whether before or after dispatch of the goods, must immediately give notice of the suspension to the other party and must continue with performance if the other party provides adequate assurance of his 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
  
• 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 71
• Editorial remarks: Sieg Eiselen [South Africa]

• 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 71 at the 1980 Vienna Diplomatic Conference
  • North-South tensions over suspension of performance and the compromise that was crafted
• Summary of UNCITRAL legislative history
• Hague Convention antecedent
  • Article 71 match-up with ULIS
  • ULIS (full-text) and André Tunc Commentary on ULIS
  • See also the Report of the Special U.S. Committee, dated 1 December 1964,
    explaining why the United States elected not to adopt either ULIS or ULF

• CASES INVOLVING CISG ARTICLE 71
  • Computer list of annotated cases

• 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

  • UNCITRAL digest + added cases

• Selected monographs and anthologies
• Comments on Article 71 by Jacob S. Ziegel [Canada] at 1984 Parker School seminar of the American Association for the Comparative Study of Law: Ch. 9, pp. 34-35

• Comments on Article 71 from monograph by Jacob S. Ziegel [Canada]

• Comments on Article 71 by Trevor Bennett [Australia] in 1987 Bianca-Bonell Commentary on the International Sales Law
• Comments on Article 71 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 71 in December 2000 text by Joseph Lookofsky [Denmark / U.S.]
• Perspectives on suspension and avoidance under Articles 71 and 72: May 2005 case annotated update by Chengwei LIU [China]
• 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
• Mercédeh Azeredo da Silveira, Anticipatory Breach under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (December 2005)
• Harry M. Flechtner [U.S.], 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

• Harry M. Flechtner [U.S.], excerpt from The Several Texts of the CISG in a Decentralized System: Observations on Translations, Reservations and other Challenges to the Uniformity Principle in Article 7(1), 17 Journal of Law and Commerce (1998) 187-217

• Damien Nyer [Canada], Withholding Performance for Breach in International Transactions: An Exercise in Equations, Proportions or Coercion?, 18 Pace International Law Review (2006) 29-81

• Caslav Pejovic, Stoppage in Transit and Right of Control, 20 Pace International Law Review (Spring 2008) 129-160

• Keith A. Rowley [U.S.], A Brief History of Anticipatory Repudiation in American Contract Law, 69 University of Cincinnati Law Review (2001) 565-639 [includes review of Anticipatory Repudiation under the CISG]

• Djakhongir Saidov [Uzbekistan], Anticipatory Non-Performance and Underlying Values of the UNIDROIT Principles, Uniform Law Review (2006) 795-822

• M. Gilbey Strub, The Convention on the International Sale of Goods: Anticipatory Repudiation Provisions and Developing Countries, 38 International and Comparative Law Quarterly (1989) 475-501

• Tatsiana Seliazniova [Belarus], Prospective Non-Performance or Anticipatory Breach of Contract (Comparison of the Belarusian Approach to CISG Application and Foreign Experience), 24 Journal of Law and Commerce (Fall 2004) 111-140
• YANG Yinghao [China], Suspension Rules under Chinese Contract Law, the UCC and the CISG: Some Comparative Perspectives, China Law & Practice (September 2004) 23-27
• Alexander von Ziegler [Switzerland], The Right of Suspension and Stoppage in Transit (and Notification Thereof), 25 Journal of Law and Commerce (2005-2006) 353-374
• Supplementary list of citations to Article 71 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 Bibliography and Bibliography Search Form [anticipatory breach, remedies, stoppage (stem for stoppage in transit) and suspension ( are search form entries you may wish to consider]

    Bibliography citations on anticipatory breach

    Citations on stoppage

    Citations on suspension

    Citations on remedies

    We encourage you to tailor your own 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

• Article 71 [Suspension of performance] is part of the section entitled Anticipatory breach and instalment contracts. This section contains three articles. For links to the other two articles, go to Annotated Text of Article 72 [Avoidance prior to the date for performance]; go to Annotated Text of Article 73 [Avoidance in installment contracts]

Words and phrases encountered in Article 71

• 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:

• Commentary on distinctions between "it becomes apparent that" [Article 71(1)], "it is clear that" [Article 72(1)], and "good grounds to conclude" [Article 73(2)]

• electronic communications. For a current and authoritative ruling on electronic communications and article 71, 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]