Of the first 300 CISG cases, almost half are decisions handed down by the courts of Germany: Municipal Courts, District Courts, Appellate Courts, and the Supreme Court of Germany. The explanation is the German trading community, as distinguished from the trading communities of most other countries, has had considerable prior experience with benefits to be derived from a uniform international sales law.

The UN Sales Convention is a direct successor to the 1964 Hague Uniform International Sales Laws (ULIS and ULF) which were in effect in Germany (and a small number of other countries) for a number of years prior to the advent of the CISG.

It took time for the German trading community to become accustomed to these uniform international sales laws (over ten years). However, by the time the CISG was promulgated, the German trading community had progressed far on its uniform international sales law learning curve. Peter Schlechtriem, "Vienna Sales Convention -- Developed Countries Perspectives" in Current Developments in International Transfers of Goods 109 (L. Rao Penna ed., 1994). The concept of a CISG was thus "pre-sold" (and continues to be "re-sold") in that country with added attention to its significance derived from important rulings on it by the Supreme Court of that country and the mass of literature on the CISG that has been written by prominent German legal scholars -- jurisprudence and doctrine that is relevant not merely to Germany, but to all jurisdictions that have adopted the CISG.

This plus the fact that Peter Schlechtriem (Europe's leading scholar on the CISG) is the chief editor of the von Caemmerer/Schlechtriem Kommentar, explains the utility of the Kommentar as a source of helpful information on German and other jurisprudence and doctrine on the CISG.