Contract damages under the United Nations convention on the international sale of goods: loss and compensation

The aim of this paper is to estimate what amounts to recoverable loss under the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods (the Convention). It will do so by surveying a number of critical issues, not all, posed by the law of damages under the Convention. In particular, it will engage with Article 74, which is the main damages provision in the Convention. A number of authors have made significant contributions to the subject of damages under the Convention, but the impression remains that the subject has received less attention than is warranted by its theoretical and practical importance. The paper therefore deals with important issues, not all of which have yet had the attention they merit from the case law and literature. It is a paper, moreover, that may be seen as representing the priorities of a common lawyer, without imposing on the Convention a common law reading of its provisions.