LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

CISG ANTECEDENTS

• Match-up of CISG article 24 with ULF provisions
• Comments on the match-up

    CISG Article 24                           ULF Article 12
  
For the purpose of this Part of     1. For the purpose of the present 
the Convention, an offer,           Law, the expression "to be 
declaration of acceptance or        communicated" means to be 
any other indication of intention   delivered at the address of the 
"reaches" the addressee when it     the person to whom the 
is made orally to him or delivered  communication is directed. 
by any other means to him  
personally, to his                  2. Communications provided for by 
place of business or mailing        the present Law shall be made by 
address or, if he does not          the means usual in the circumstances. 
have a place of business 
or mailing address, to his 
habitual residence. 

Comments on the match-up

"[CISG] Article 24 can be traced back to the definition of the expression 'to be communicated' in Article 12(1) ULF and was amended several times in the discussions of the Working Group. Detailed consideration was given not only to oral declarations; the addressee's place of habitual residence was also made a -- purely subsidiary -- address for the receipt of declarations. The restriction in Article 12(2) ULF on the means of making a declaration ('means usual in the circumstances') was dropped, the view being that it would be inconsistent with the possibility of an [acceptance being made 'orally . . . or . . . by any other means'." Schlechtriem in Commentary on the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods, Peter Schlechtriem ed. (Oxford 1998). 161 [citations omitted].

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Pace Law School Institute of International Commercial Law - Last updated June 19, 1998

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