The CISG and Commodity Sales: A Relationship to Be Revisited?
![handle is hein.journals/sjls2021 and id is 273 raw text is: Singapore Journal of Legal Studies
[2021] 271-290
THE CISG AND COMMODITY SALES: A RELATIONSHIP
TO BE REVISITED?
MICHAEL G BRIDGE*
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.
I. INTRODUCTION
This article deals with the relationship, or lack of it, between the United Nations
(UN) Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG)1 and the commodity
trades. Its concern is with English law because of the extensive use of English law
in international commodity sales, but its message is also of relevance in Singapore
to the extent that Singapore law (minus the CISG) is used as the governing law in
commodity sales. The article is not concerned with the questions why the United
Kingdom (UK) has not acceded to the CISQ2 whether it should accede to the
CISG how close it came in the past to accession and whether the time is now ripe
for accession.3 As a matter of incidental observation, my own view is that the UK
should accede to the CISG and also that, despite the country's apparent retreat from
the world with its exit from the European Union (EU), a stated national justification
for departure is that of engagement with the broader world. On one view, this points
to accession given that the CISG has now been adopted by 94 States, which number
QC (Hon), FBA, Geoffrey Bartholomew Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore;
Emeritus Professor of Law, London School of Economics; Senior Research Fellow, Harris Manchester
College, University of Oxford.
Convention on the International Sale of Goods, 11 April 1980, 1489 UNTS 3 (entered into force 1 Jan
1988) [CISG].
2 Singapore, of course, has adopted the CISG but there appears to be little appetite for it on the part of
contracting parties, who under the terms of art 6 of the CISG are free to exclude it from their dealings.
3 These questions are well explored in Heywood, Zeller & Baasch Andersen, The CISG and the United
Kingdom: Exploring Coherency and Private International Law (2018) 67 ICLQ 607.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/sjls2021&div=22&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The CISG and Commodity Sales: A Relationship to Be Revisited?
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