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35 years CISG and beyond

In the Preface to the 3rd edition of Commentary on the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG), editor Professor Ingeborg Schwenzer notes:

“the CISG has enjoyed enduring success and continues to do so. Today, the Convention has 74 Contracting States. Most notably, on 19 June 2008, the Japanese parliament decided to adopt the Convention; the instrument of ratification was deposited on 1 July 2008 and the Convention came into force on 1 August 2009. Other important states such as Brazil, Turkey, and Portugal are expected to join the Convention in the near future.”

It is within this context that the University of Basel, the Swiss Association for International Law (SVIR/SSDI) and UNCITRAL are hosting a special conference which will mark 35 years of the Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG), from 29th-30th January 2015. In this conference, special focus will be given to open issues in regard to the CISG’s application and any possible further harmonization and unification of contract law.

The range of speakers at the Conference includes the world’s leading scholars on the CISG and comparative law, including fellow Oxford author Dr Pascal Hachem, who will be speaking on ‘Extending the CISG: Beyond Sales Contracts’. Among the speakers are members and rapporteurs of the CISG Advisory Council. Other speakers include Professor Dr. H. Flechtner, Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law; Professor Dr. S. Han, professor of Civil Law in Tsinghua University School of Law (Beijing) and a Fulbright Visiting Research Scholar visiting Harvard Law School and Professor Dr. B. Piltz, Partner of the law firm Ahlers & Vogel, Hamburg.

Basel in the morning, by dongga BS. CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0 via Flickr.
Basel in the morning, by dongga BS. CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0 via Flickr.

Other highlights from the conference programme include an economic analysis of the CISG, a focus on validity issues when extending the CISG and the future of unification of contract law. The conference dinner will be held at the Restaurant Safran Zunft, a location first documented in the 14th century.

The conference is hosted at the University of Basel in Switzerland, one of the leading universities in the country. Originally founded in in connection with the Council of Basel, it was officially opened in 1460, the deed of foundation having already been given in the form of a Papal bull in 1459 by Pope Pius II. The University of Basel was originally decreed to have four faculties—arts, medicine, theology and jurisprudence and The University Library of Basel has over three million books and writings and is the largest library in Switzerland.

Basel itself, Switzerland’s third largest city by population, is located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet. It has suburbs in France and Germany, and is situated in the north west of Switzerland on the river Rhine. Basel is an important cultural centre for Switzerland. The city houses many theatres and museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, which contains the world’s oldest publicly accessible art collection.

Oxford University Press is proud to be a Gold Partner of 35 Years CISG and Beyond. If you are attending keep an eye out for the Oxford University Press stand, where we’ll be offering a discount on our renowned contract law commentaries and conducting demonstrations of our new online product Oxford Legal Research Library: International Commercial Law, which offers online access to both Commentary on the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and Global Sales and Contract Law. If you’d like more information about CISG and the Global Sales Law Project ahead of the Conference, you can also watch Ingeborg Schwenzer introduce the topic.

Featured image credit: HerbstMesse Basel, by Niki Georgiev. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.

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