The 'Validity Exception' in the CISG and Remedies for Mistake in Domestic Contract Law: Preemption and Concurrence

Abstract

The 1980 Vienna Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) contains a noticeable intrinsic tension between its strife for international uniformity and national rules on contract validity. The fact that the substantive scope of application of the Convention is limited, inter alia, by the ostensible exclusion of the issue of contractual validity in Article 4 has stirred lively discussion. This paper seeks to clarify the interplay between the CISG and national rules on mistake by means of a comparison between national provisions such as those of the Italian Civil Code and the CISG, in order to highlight the effects of an overlap between national and uniform law on contract validity, as well as the possible solutions in case of conflict between the two.

Keywords: CISG, contract, validity, commercial law, article 4

JEL Classification: K12