Ethical standards in international sales contracts: Can the CISG be used to prevent child labour?

<p>Despite international efforts in recent decades to eliminate it, child labour continues to affect millions of children worldwide. This paper considers whether the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (‘CISG’) can be used to prevent child labour. It firstly addresses the conformity requirements in art 35 of the CISG, and asks whether these can be used to require a seller to deliver child labour-free goods, even where this is not explicitly required by the contract. It then considers whether a buyer can recover damages if the seller delivers goods that are tainted by child labour. It examines the difficulties associated with a claim for damages in this context – especially where the only harm suffered by the buyer is to its goodwill or its ‘performance interest’ – and suggests how such damages might be calculated.</p>

Ethical standards in international sales contracts: Can the CISG be used to prevent child labour?

<p>Despite international efforts in recent decades to eliminate it, child labour continues to affect millions of children worldwide. This paper considers whether the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (‘CISG’) can be used to prevent child labour. It firstly addresses the conformity requirements in art 35 of the CISG, and asks whether these can be used to require a seller to deliver child labour-free goods, even where this is not explicitly required by the contract. It then considers whether a buyer can recover damages if the seller delivers goods that are tainted by child labour. It examines the difficulties associated with a claim for damages in this context – especially where the only harm suffered by the buyer is to its goodwill or its ‘performance interest’ – and suggests how such damages might be calculated.</p>

Sale Agreement With Redemption Right

Although the legal regulation of this contract as a special named modality of the basic type of contract of sale was missing in our positive legislation, its significance for today’s modern legal transactions is undoubted. Sales contracts with the right of redemption are still concluded today and are an integral part of the living organisms of our contractual contract law. This was also noticed by the Commission for the Drafting of the Civil Code of the Republic of Serbia, which envisaged the legal regulation of this important legal work in the Pre-Draft of the new Civil Code. In this way, the intention of the Commission to finally fill the legal gap that still exists in the Serbian contract law regarding the legal regulation of this legal transaction as a special named contract was expressed. Sales contracts with the right of redemption are valid legal transactions that still produce legal effects, under the condition that they are concluded in accordance with the general principles of our contract law, within the limits prescribed by positive laws and regulations and are not contrary to public order and good customs. In this paper, the author looks at the origin and historical development of this modality of the contract of sale, the concept, features and subject of the contract, including the rights and obligations of the parties, presented significant understandings of legal science on the legal nature and duration of contracts of sale and pointed out the need for its legal regulation as a named contract.

Certain problems of legal regulation of the conclusion of the purchase and sale contract (on the basis of analysis of examples from judicial practice)

The contract of purchase and sale is one of the most common contractual institutions. According to the Art. 655 of the Civil code of Ukraine, under the contract of purchase and sale one party (seller) transfers or undertakes to transfer property (goods) into property to other party (buyer), and the buyer accepts or undertakes to accept prop-erty (goods) and to pay for it a certain monetary amount. At the same time, according to the case law, no unified approaches have been developed to interpret the legal consequences of failure to reach agreement on all the essential terms of purchase and sales contracts and mechanisms to protect the interests of counterparties to such agreements. Examining the procedure for concluding a contract of purchase and sale, we can not ignore the problem of its «conclusion», «validity» and «non-conclusion». It should be noted that the Civil Code of Ukraine has not provided a legal definition of «failed contract» or «unconcluded contract». Instead, the Economic Code of Ukraine in the Part 8 of the Art. 181 has stipulated that in case the parties do not reach an agreement on all material terms, their contract will be considered unconcluded or failed. No less difficulties also arise in interpreting the contract of purchase and sale as invalid or not concluded if at least one of its parties denies the fact of signing. The approach according to which «in case of contesting the very fact of concluding a transaction, such a fact can be refuted by presenting a relevant conclusion on the inconsisten-cy in the motivating part of the court decision» – does not quite agree with Art. 55 of the Constitution of Ukraine and the principle of access to justice. For example, under the current approach in court practice, the plaintiff is not reimbursed for court costs (costs of paying court fees, legal aid costs, etc.). In any case, as of today, it is expedient to better address the relevant problems in order to provide a real opportunity for participants in civil traffic to effec-tively protect their rights and interests.

Interpreting merger clauses in contracts governed by the CISG: delineating the scope for the use of extrinsic evidence

Under Article 8(3) of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), parties’ statements, prior negotiations and other external circumstances may be used to assess the presence of subjective or objective intent that can, in turn, be used to interpret contractual terms in international sales contracts governed by the CISG. However, parties to the contract can, through the adoption of an ‘entire agreement’ or ‘merger’ clause, opt out of this rule under Article 8(3) and restrict these interpretative tools in any manner as they see fit, depending on the requirements of their contract. Since the CISG does not explicitly address merger clauses and their effects, the CISG Advisory Council, in its Opinion no. 3, has provided a test to determine how the scope of a merger clause is to be determined. However, this test presents certain conceptual and practical limitations that render it inadequate for use in international commercial contracts. This article aims to analyse this test and the methods that have been used to interpret merger clauses under other uniform legal instruments and cases in common law jurisdictions. On this basis, the article proposes a test that attempts to fully capture the conceptual intent behind including merger clauses while ensuring that the parties are in the driver’s seat while determining their scope and effect.

Farmer preferences regarding durum wheat contracts in Italy: a discrete choice experiment

PurposeThis study aims to investigate farmer preferences regarding sales contracts for durum wheat in Italy.Design/methodology/approachThe authors consider that contracts are formed by an organisational entity that is in charge of transferring decision and property rights based on reductions in transaction costs. The empirical analysis presents a discrete choice experiment with three distinct models that was performed by a survey of 160 wheat farmers in southern Italy.FindingsThe results show that contractual terms affect the probability of both a contract being signed and allocating decision rights due to their effects on price, technology and quality.Practical implicationsThis study provides some insights on which contractual attributes could support the wider use of contracts along the durum wheat supply chain in Italy.Originality/valueThe paper reveals that contracts are relevant not only to the coordination of agri-food chains because of price stabilisation but also due to their impacts on technology and quality strategies.

COVID-19 PANDEMIC AS FORCE MAJEURE: IT’S ENFORCEABILITY ON THE FAILURE TO FULFILL CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS AND THE FAILURE TO PRESENTS COMPLYING DOCUMENTS IN LETTER OF CREDIT

<p><em>The performance of contractual obligations holds an important role in the fulfillment of sales contracts, therefore, each parties involved would done their best to complete them. The existence of COVID-19 pandemic affected the trade sphere and could bring impediment in the form of force majeure. This research aims to find out the enforceability of COVID-19 as force majeure on the performance of sales contract and the enforceability of COVID-19 as force majeure according to UCP 600 on failure to presents complying documents. This research was conducted by using normative method and qualitative method, the latter was used to analyze the secondary data of which was collected by literature study of relevant materials. The result of this research shows that the enforceability of COVID-19 as force majeure depends on the way of sales contracts are worded and the tribunal’s interpretation on the laws and practices in international trade. The UCP 600’s force majeure clause phrasing open up the interpretation on the possibility of COVID-19 as force majeure, however, the clause cannot be enforced on the failure to presents complying documents, caused by COVID-19 or not, as it concerns the matter of Bank’s responsibility in the case of force majeure</em></p>

Technically Sopisticated Goods in the Context of Consumer Rights when Defects are Detected in the Good

Introduction: currently, retail sales contracts are widely used, under which technically sophisticated goods are transferred to the property, which form a special group of goods and have the specifics of the legal regulation. Meanwhile, there is no legal definition of a technically sophisticated good, and there are no regulatory criteria for this legal category. In this regard, the authors set the goal: to summarize the approaches developed by judicial practice on this issue, to identify what normative justification of technical sophistication is used when including goods in the List of technically sophisticated goods. Results: the importance of qualifying a product as technically sophisticated is investigated, the problems of qualifying goods as technically sophisticated are identified, and the reasons for determining the category of wireless devices equipped with a touch screen, two or more functions, and the absence of similar devices without a touch screen in the List of technically sophisticated products are established. Conclusions: based on the analysis of the legislation and the materials of judicial practice, the problems of applying the List of technically sophisticated goods and the ambiguity of the law enforcement are identified. Based on the results of the work, the authors have developed the practical proposals and recommendations for improving the legislation.