Overview Of The International Sale Of Goods Law

The law of international sale of goods mainly includes the conclusion of contracts for the international sale of goods, obligations of sellers and buyers, remedies for breach of contract of sale and purchase, pfer of ownership and risks of goods, etc.

I. The Origin of the international sale of Goods Law

There are three sources of international trade in goods: one is the international treaty; the other is the international trade practice; the three is the relevant domestic law.

(I) international treaties.

International treaties are an important source of international sale of goods law.

The international treaties on the international sale of goods law mainly include: the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the international sale of goods, the Convention on the limitation of contracts for the international sale of goods, the Convention on the law applicable to contracts for the international sale of goods, the Convention on the unification of certain legal rules of bills of lading in 1924 (Hague rules), the rules of the Weiss ratio, the Convention on International Carriage of goods by sea, and so on, in 1924.

Among them, 1980 the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the international sale of goods (hereinafter referred to as the "Convention") is by far the most important international treaty on Contracts for the international sale of goods.

It was adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and was adopted at the diplomatic conference held in Vienna in 1980 and came into effect in January 1, 1988.

As of the first half of 1996, there were 44 countries that approved and participated in the Convention, including Argentina, Australia, Austria, China, Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Bosnia - Hesse, govina, Chile, Czech, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Egypt, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Guinea, Hungary, Iraq, Italy, Lesotho, Lesotho, Lesotho, Italy, China, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, China, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Switzerland, China, the United States, China, Portugal and Switzerland.

China is a member of the Convention.

The attitude of our country to the Convention is: basically agree with the content of the Convention, but within the scope permitted by the Convention, the following two reservations are put forward according to the specific circumstances of our country:

1, contracts for international sale of goods must be retained in written form.

In accordance with the provisions of the Convention, contracts for the international sale of goods do not have to be written in written form or in written form, and are not restricted in form.

That is to say, it is considered effective in written form, oral form or any other form.

This provision is inconsistent with the stipulate that foreign economic contracts (including international sales contracts) must be written in foreign economic contract law.

Therefore, when China ratified the Convention, it made reservations.

China insists that contracts for the international sale of goods must be in written form, and the contract of international sale of goods without written form is invalid.

2. Reservations about the scope of use of the Convention.

When the Convention is to determine its scope of use, it is based on the criteria of the parties' business in different countries, and the nationality of the parties shall not be considered.

In accordance with the provisions of the Convention, if the parties to the contract are located in different countries, and these countries are also parties to the Convention, the Convention will apply to contracts for the sale of goods concluded by these parties.

That is, the Convention applies to contracts of sale between parties with different places of business.

Our country agrees with this dot.

However, the Convention also stipulates that, as long as the place of business of the parties is in different countries, even if the state of their place of business is not a contracting party to the covenant, if the law in accordance with the rules of private international law applies to the law of a Contracting State, the Convention will also apply to the sales contracts concluded between these parties.

The purpose of this provision is to expand the scope of application of the Convention so that it can also be applied in some cases to sales contracts concluded between the parties in the non contracting state.

For this dot, China also made reservations when approving the Convention.

According to this reservation, in China, the scope of application of the Convention is limited to the contract for the sale of goods between dot parties in different places.

Since China is a contracting party to the Convention, and the number of countries participating in the Convention is increasing, the Convention will play a more and more important role in the sale of state goods.

Therefore, this chapter will introduce the Convention as an important dot when introducing the law of international sale of goods.

(two) international trade practices.

The practice of international trade is another important source of the law of international sale of goods.

In international sale of goods, if both parties stipulate a convention in the contract, it will be binding on both parties.

When disputes arise, courts and arbitral bodies may also determine the rights and obligations of the parties in accordance with international trade practices.

The international practice of international sale of goods mainly includes the following:

1. Incoterms (INCOTERMS) formulated by the International Chamber of Commerce.

The general principles were formulated in 1935 and revised in 1953. In recent years, in order to apply the changes in the mode of international carriage of goods and the development of electronic technology, two amendments were made in 1980 and 1990.

The current version is revised in 1990.

The general rule has been widely recognized and adopted internationally, and China has also been widely used in foreign trade business.

2, the Warsaw Oxford rules formulated by the International Law Association in 1932.

The rule is formulated for the CIF contract. It specifies the responsibilities, risks and costs of the buyer and seller in the CIF contract, which has a considerable impact internationally.

3. The uniform customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (revised 1993) and the uniform rules for collection established by the International Chamber of Commerce.

This is the two important practice concerning payment in international trade. They have confirmed that when adopting the letter of credit and collection method, the responsibilities and obligations between banks and the parties concerned have a great influence internationally, and China is also widely used in foreign trade business.

Besides, there are still some conventions which are not enumerated here.

(three) domestic law on the sale of goods

1. Foreign laws.

Although the international conventions and practices concerning international trade in goods are increasing and improving, there is still a considerable distance from the unification of the international sale of goods law.

In dealing with disputes over contracts for the sale of international goods, courts or arbitral institutions still need to use the rules of private international law to choose the domestic law of a country.

Therefore, the domestic law on the sale and purchase of goods is still one of the important sources of the law of international sale of goods.

In the countries of the continental law, the law of sale and purchase is generally incorporated into the civil code as part of the debt composition, such as the third chapter of the French civil code, the second chapter, and the second chapter of the second German civil code.

These codification usually do not have specific legal provisions for the sale of goods, and regard the sale and purchase of goods as a unification of movable property pactions.

The sale of goods in common law countries consists of two parts:

First, the common law, which is a legal principle established by the court in the form of precedent, belongs to the Case or law law.

The two is the statute law or the Statute. It is a law enacted by the legislature, which is representative of the Sale of Goods Act (1893) in 1893. It is a sales law based on the judgments made by the United Kingdom over the past several hundred years concerning the cases of goods trading.

The law was amended in 1979 and is now valid in 1979 (hereinafter referred to as the British goods trading act).

The 1893 sale of Goods Act provides a model for Anglo American law countries to formulate their own trading laws.

The United States Uniform Sale of Goods Act (1906) was formulated in 1906.

This law has been adopted by 36 states of the United States, but over time, the law has been unable to meet the requirements of American economic development.

Therefore, since 1942, the United States State Law Commission and the American law society have begun to draft the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).

The code was published in 1952 and has been amended many times since 1998.

The title of the second part of the code is called "sale and purchase", which provides specific provisions on matters related to the sale and purchase of goods, and its contents are the most detailed in the laws and regulations of the countries in the world.

However, the Uniform Commercial Code of the United States is different from the commercial code of the continental law countries. The latter is a law formulated and passed by the legislature, while the former is not a legal sample drafted by some legal bodies for free use in the states of the United States. Its legal effectiveness depends entirely on whether the legislature of each state adopts it.

Since the unified commercial code of the United States can meet the requirements of contemporary American economic development, by 1990, the states of the United States adopted the Uniform Commercial Code of the United States through their respective state legislative procedures, making it the law of the state.

But some states do not use all of them, but are only partially adopted.

For example, Lewis Anne did not use the second law of the code, the law of sale. It is said that the law of sale and purchase of the state is quite similar to that of the United States commercial code, so there is no need to adopt the text of the United States commercial code.

It can be seen that the Uniform Commercial Code of the United States is governed by statutes by all States, not by the laws of the United States, so it is a state law rather than a federal law.

Since the implementation of the unified commercial code of the United States, the unified sales law of 1906 has been abolished.

2, China's relevant laws.

China's various relations arising from the law on the sale of goods are mainly regulated by the general principles of civil law, the economic contract law and the foreign economic contract law.

The fourth chapter of the "general principles of civil law" promulgated in 1986, the first section on civil juristic acts, the fifth chapter second section on the provisions of claims, and the sixth chapter on the provisions of civil liability, are closely related to the sale of goods.

The economic contract law, promulgated in 1982, further made specific provisions on ten economic contracts, including the purchase and sale contract, namely the contract for the sale of goods, and the provisions on product quantity, quality, packaging, price, delivery date and acceptance are all directly applicable to the sales contract.

However, it should be pointed out that China's economic contract law reflects the special dot and requirements of the planned economy system at that time in many aspects.

For example, the eleventh provision of the act stipulates that an economic contract must conform to the requirements of the national plan. Any economic pactions that belong to the state's mandatory plan products must be signed according to the index issued by the state. If the agreement can not reach agreement, it should be handled by the superior authorities at both sides.

Such regulations are necessary for some domestic economic contracts.

However, for the international sale of goods, especially foreign parties, the above provisions are difficult to apply.

Therefore, the economic contract law can only be applied to domestic economic contracts. Foreign economic contracts, including contracts for the international sale of goods, must be formulated by special laws.

In view of this situation, China formulated and promulgated the "foreign economic contract law of the People's Republic of China" in 1985.

This Law applies to all foreign economic contracts other than international pport contracts, and of course applies to contracts for the international sale of goods.

Although there is no specific provision for the contract of international sale of goods under the foreign related economic contract law, the foreign economic contract, the performance of the contract, and the contract shall be stipulated.