Brown & Root Services v. Aerotech Herman Nelson: The Continuing Plight of the U.N. Sales Convention in Canada

Abstract

The latest Canadian case on the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG or Convention) follows a series of disappointing rulings by Canadian courts. Brown & Root Services v. Aerotech Herman Nelson is the eighth domestic case since Canada acceded to the CISG in 1992. Since that time, most Canadian cases have remained unreported, and there is still doubt as to whether legal practitioners fully grasp the significance of this law. In the past, courts have sometimes ignored the CISG entirely, or treated it as an interloper, or considered it to be synonymous with domestic sales law. This treatment is antithetical to the interpretive methodology embodied in the CISG. This requires national courts to avoid recourse to domestic legal concepts. Instead, legal practitioners must have due regard for the CISG's autonomous, international character, and the need to promote uniformity across all signatory states. This failure to recognize and give effect to the international character of the CISG suggests to the world community that the Canadian judiciary lacks a certain analytical sophistication with international law, or suffers from legal parochialism.

Keywords: CISG, international commercial law, conflict of law, private international law, harmonization, uniformity, sales law, Canada