DOES ENGLISH LAW PROVIDE THE BEST FRAMEWORK FOR THE SALE OF COMMODITIES? – A COMPARISON BETWEEN ENGLISH LAW, INCOTERMS AND THE CISG

Abstract

We are in the fast-moving globalised world and there is a lot of international trade happening. For instance, the commodity such as a bushel of Wheat, which may be imported to Cape Town by a trader A, from a trader B, who is residing in Rotterdam. These bushels may have been purchased by B during their voyage from trader C, who is having his place of business in Texas. Further, these bushels may have been originally shipped by trader D from Gujrat. As these bushels of Wheat may be transported from factories to warehouses and then to port of shipments to the port of destination. In the process of transportation between various parties, there is a scope for many mishaps, such as, robbery of these bushels on port of shipment, capsizing of the ship during the voyage, occurring of fire in storehouse of ship resulting in damages to the Wheat and most importantly, the fluctuations in the prices of Wheat due to the global demand and supply. In these kind of contracts, there are many sort of rights and duties inclined with traders who are the parties to such contracts, thus, there is necessity of rules to implement and define the same. As the buyers and sellers may be situated in different jurisdictions, there are issues in applying the private international laws of the parties, so there is a need for uniform set of rules to regulate these contracts and to avoid the recourse to the rules of different jurisdictions. To cater this need, the international sale of commodities concentrates on 3 different kinds of frameworks, i.e., United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (Vienna, 1980) (hereafter "CISG"), Sale of Goods Act 1979 and Incoterms by International Chamber of Commerce, emphasising on the international trade, which includes the contract of sale, purchase and trade of commodities between the parties.