[C] The United Nations Convention

An attempt at world-wide unification of law is being made under the aegis of various branches of the United Nations. One of these, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, (UNCITRAL), was the body under whose auspices a treaty concerning international sales of goods was written, approved at a diplomatic conference and ratified by the United States. It, too, is the law of the land. For it to apply, the seller and buyer must have places of business in two different countries.n25

Legal Topics:

For related research and practice materials, see the following legal topics:

Contracts LawSales of GoodsGeneral OverviewCommercial Law (UCC)Sales (Article 2)General OverviewCommercial Law (UCC)General Provisions (Article 1)Application & ConstructionGeneral OverviewContracts LawGeneral OverviewCommercial Law (UCC)General Provisions (Article 1)Application & ConstructionChoice of LawInternational Transactions

FOOTNOTES:

(n1)Footnote 1. See Patrick S. Atiyah, Contracts, Promises and the Law of Obligations, 94 L.Q.Rev. 193, 199-201 (1978); Addison Mueller, Contract Remedies: Business Fact and Legal Fantasy, 1967 Wis.L.Rev. 833; see also Grant Gilmore, The Death of Contract (1974). For a good analysis of this thesis, see Richard E. Speidel, An Essay on the Reported Death and Continued Vitality of Contract, 27 Stanford L.Rev. 1161 (1975).

(n2)Footnote 2. Lawrence M. Friedman and Stewart Macaulay, Contract Law and Contract Teaching: Past, Present and Future, 1967 Wis.L.Rev. 805.

(n3)Footnote 3. Neil J. Dilloff, A Contractual Analysis of the Military Enlistment, 8 U. Richmond L.Rev. 121 (1974).

(n4)Footnote 4. Stewart Macaulay, Private Legislation and the Duty to Read-Business Run By IBM Machine, the Law of Contracts and Credit Cards, 19 Vand.L.Rev. 1051 (1966).

(n5)Footnote 5. Clyde W. Summers, Collective Agreements and the Law of Contracts, 78 Yale L.J. 525 (1969).

(n6)Footnote 6. Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, book II, chs. 11, 12 (Whewell trans. 1853).

(n7)Footnote 7. Civil Code of the R.S.F.S.R., part III (Gray and Stults trans. 1965).

(n8)Footnote 8. ''[I]n any intellectual enterprise ... there must always be a certain difference between theory and practice or experience. A theory must certainly be simpler than the factual complexity or chaos that faces us when we lack the guidance which a general chart of the field affords us. A chart or map would be altogether useless if it did not simplify the actual contours and topography which it describes ... No science offers us an absolutely complete account of its subject matter. It is sufficient if it indicates some general pattern to which the phenomena approximate more or less. For practical purposes any degree of approximation will do if it will lead to a greater control over nature than we should have without our ideal pattern. But for theoretic purposes we need the postulate that all divergences between the ideal and the actual will be progressively minimized by the discovery of subsidiary principles deduced from, or at least consistent with, the principles of our science.'' Morris R. Cohen, Reason and Law 63-64 (Free Press ed. 1950).

(n9)Footnote 9. Jorge L. Borges, A Universal History of Infamy 141 (di Giovanni trans., E.P. Dutton & Co. 1972).

(n10)Footnote 10. See § 1.4 above.

(n11)Footnote 11. Among his most significant works are Ian R. Macneil, The New Social Contract (New Haven 1980); Macneil, The Many Futures of Contract, 47 So.Calif.L.Rev. 691 (1974); Macneil, Restatement (Second) of Contracts and Presentation, 60 Va.L.Rev. 589 (1974). Stewart Macauley has made much the same point in Macauley, Non-Contractual Relations in Business: A Preliminary Study, 28 Am.Sociological Rev. 55 (1963).

(n12)Footnote 12. For a fuller discussion, See Preface, Restatement of Contracts (1932).

(n13)Footnote 13. See Robert Braucher, Freedom of Contract and the Second Restatement, 78 Yale L.J. 598, 616 (1969).

(n14)Footnote 14. W.A. Gewes, The Romance of the Law Merchant vi (London 1923). The coverage and scope of the law merchant can be garnered by looking at the topic headings in Consuetudo, vel, Lex Mercatoria, or the Ancient Law-Merchant, Divided in Three Parts, according to the Essential Parts of Traffick, by Gerard Malynes, Merchant (London 1685, 1981 reprint).

(n15)Footnote 15. See William A. Schnader, A Short History of the Preparation and Enactment of the Uniform Commercial Code, 22 U.Miami L.Rev. 1 (1967); James J. White and Robert S. Summers, Uniform Commercial Code 1-22 (3d ed.1988).

(n16)Footnote 16. The citation ''U.C.C. § 2-238'' indicates that the provision is in Article 2. The citation ''U.C.C. § 3-211'' indicates the provision is in Article 3.

(n17)Footnote 17. Article 2A is the topic of a symposium. 39 Alabama L.Rev. 559 (1988).

(n18)Footnote 18. The term ''goods'' is defined in § 2-105, with a cross reference to § 2-107.

(n19)Footnote 19. See Miller v. Preitz, 422 Pa. 383, 221 A.2d 320 (1966) ; Comment, The Jurisprudence and Judicial Treatment of the Comments to the Uniform Commercial Code, 75 Cornell L.Rev. 962 (1990).

(n20)Footnote 20. The result of having two sets of contract rules has been criticized. Samuel Williston, The Law of Sales in the Proposed Uniform Commercial Code, 63 Harv.L.Rev. 561 (1950); but see Arthur L. Corbin, The Uniform Commercial Code-Sales; Should it be enacted?, 59 Yale L.J. 821 (1950).

(n21)Footnote 21. U.C.C. § 1-103.

(n22)Footnote 22. See § 1.22

(n23)Footnote 23. Nelson v. Union Equity Co-op Exch., 548 S.W.2d 352, 355, 95 A.L.R.3d 471 (Tex.1977) .

(n24)Footnote 24. See George I. Wallach, The Law of Sales Under the U.C.C. § 1.06[1][b] (1981); John F. Dolan, The Merchant Class of Article 2: Farmers, Doctors and Others, 1977 Wash. U. L. Q. 1, Annot., 95 A.L.R.3d 484 (1979). It has been held that a person who makes a yearly purchase and resale of a yacht is not a merchant. Czarnecki v. Roller, 726 F.Supp. 832 (S.D.Fla.1989) . Similarly, a bank that repossesses and resells five cars a year is not an automobile merchant. Joyce v. Combank/Longwood, 405 So.2d 1358 (Fla.App.1981) .

(n25)Footnote 25. The Convention is thoroughly analyzed in John O. Honnold, Uniform Law for International Sales under the 1980 United Nations Convention (1987).