The CISG and commodity sales:a relationship to be revisited?

The United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods is a remarkably successful example of uniform law in the private sector. It is confined to commercial sale transactions with the requisite international element, but the question is whether it is a suitable instrument for all types of international sale on a one-size-fits-all basis. In the commodity trades (the examples given here are oil, grain and soya transactions), there has been a resolute resistance to the Convention, as the standard form contracts routinely exclude the Convention. This article explains why certain provisions of the Convention may not be suitable for commodity sales but, more importantly, points to the dominant position of English law in these trades, together with a large bank of precedents giving certainty and predictability to transactions that often take on the character of market-driven, speculative financial dealings.