Guest Post: A CISG Question

[William S. Dodge is The Honorable Roger J. Traynor Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.]

The U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) sets forth substantive rules of contract law to govern contracts for the sale of goods between parties who have their places of business in different CISG countries. See Art. 1. The United States is one of 83 countries that have joined the CISG. According to figures from the Census Bureau, U.S. trade in goods with CISG countries exceeded $2.4 trillion in 2013, which means a lot of contracts to which the CISG potentially applies. (I have written about the need for American contracts students to have some exposure to the CISG here.) It is possible for contractual parties to exclude application of the CISG (see Art. 6), but they must do so expressly. A choice of law clause stating that the contract is governed by “the laws of California,” for example, would not be sufficient. See, e.g., Asante Technologies, Inc. v. PMC-Sierra, Inc., 164 F. Supp. 2d 1142, 1149-50 (N.D. Cal. 2001).

The CISG entered into force with respect to Brazil on April 1, 2014. But treaties do not become effective as domestic law in Brazil until approved by executive decree, which did not happen until October 16, 2014. See Decree No. 8.327. Trade in goods between the United States and Brazil averages $6 billion a month, so a lot of contracts for the sale of goods between Brazilian companies and U.S. companies were presumably entered between April 1 and October 16.

What law governs those contracts (or more precisely, those that did not effectively exclude application of the CISG)? It may well depend on the forum in which suit is brought. My guess is that a Brazilian court would not apply the CISG to these contracts because it was not effective as a matter of Brazilian law. But I expect that a U.S. court would apply the CISG to these contracts because the treaty was in force between Brazil and the United States as a matter of international law and binding on U.S. courts under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. If the parties have chosen arbitration, the answer should turn on the parties’ (presumed) intent, but that may be hard to fathom in a case like this. In any event, this situation presents a good example of the need for countries to make sure that treaties to which they are bound internationally are properly implemented in their domestic laws.