Decisions Interpreting CISG
Because CISG governs international contracts, decisions interpreting it have been made by scores of foreign courts and arbitral tribunals. Several organizations have created tools to help researchers sort through them all.
UNCITRAL regularly publishes short reports called Case Law on UNCITRAL Texts (CLOUT). Each report provides abstracts (short summaries) for roughly a dozen decisions interpreting CISG or other UNCITRAL drafted texts. Each decision is assigned its own unique CLOUT number for identification.
The CLOUT reports serve as the basis for two UNCITRAL tools that are excellent starting points for locating decisions on CISG:
- UNCITRAL CISG Digest (2016)An almost 600 page article-by-article analysis of decisions interpreting CISG. The text of each CISG article is followed by a summary of how it has been interpreted, with copious citations to the relevant decisions. Citations include the decision's CLOUT number and information on where to find any available free versions and English translations.
- UNCITRAL CLOUT Database- Filtered to CISG DecisionsThe CLOUT database searches decisions abstracted in UNCITRAL's CLOUT reports. The link above filters to only those cases interpreting CISG (not other UNCITRAL texts.) Use the side bar to filter results further by article, country, or date. Use the search bar to search by CLOUT number or to search abstracts by keyword. For each decision, UNCITRAL links to the report including the abstract of the decision and to any available full-text versions of the decision.
Other organizations provide additional tools for locating decisions on CISG:
- Pace- Search CISG CasesSearch CISG decisions by term, descriptor (standard terms developed by the Pace database founder), article, and UNCITRAL Thesaurus (article subtopics developed by UNCITRAL.)
- UNILEX- CISG Decisions by Article & IssueBrowse to an article by entering its number or clicking Next at the top of the screen. Click any of the issues listed after the text of each article to access decisions on that issue.
- UNILEX- CISG Decisions by SubjectNot sure which article governs an issue? Look up issues to be taken to the articles governing them.
- CISG-online.ch- Search CasesAn alternative search form for cases, developed by the authors of the preeminent Schlechtriem & Schwenzer treatise on CISG.
Generally, Pace's database provides the most comprehensive search and content but most databases link extensively to material on other databases and each database's coverage varies slightly. The best bet is to check UNCITRAL's CISG Digest, Pace, and UNILEX.
Pace's CISG search incorporates an earlier thesaurus and index created by UNCITRAL. Pace's search is the best way to access the thesaurus and index because it is the most current version and provides direct links to each decision. However, an earlier version of the thesaurus and index can also be accessed in PDF form on the UNCITRAL website: