Source: https://www.smithdebnamlaw.com/2008/07/whos-afraid-of-the-cisg-contracts-for-the-international-sale-of-goods/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 17:27:00+00:00

Document:
The 1980 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) is the first model commercial law to gain widespread international acceptance. Over 60 states, including the United States, China, Russia, and France, have ratified the CISG, making it the default substantive law governing contracts for the sale of goods between a buyer and a seller from different ContractingStates. However, the CISG has not been as readily applied in the United States as it has in other countries.
It is easy to see why North Carolina practitioners would be reluctant to select an unfamiliar body of law to govern potential disputes between the commercial buyers and sellers they represent. The CISG contains provisions that are significantly different from the familiar principles of North Carolina’s version of the Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.). For instance, the CISG does not exclude parol evidence of contractual terms, requires no writing for a valid contract, and maintains the “mirror image” rule. Despite the differences that may make a North Carolina practitioner wary, the CISG contains sufficient protections for contracting parties, and in fact, serves the interests of international buyers and sellers of goods better than North Carolina’s version of the U.C.C.
Part I of this article will discuss the history and purpose of the CISG. Part II will consider the applicability of the CISG to international commercial contracts where one contracting party is from the United States. Part III will discuss some notable differences between the CISG and North Carolina law. Finally, Part IV will consider situations in which the CISG may better serve the interests of parties to a contract for the international sale of goods than the U.C.C. or North Carolina common law.
Despite the significance of the development of the ULF and ULIS, neither was widely adopted by the international community.15 Many states, including the United States, were very critical of the uniform laws.16 To address the concerns of these states, UNCITRAL established a new Working Group composed of fourteen states to review the inadequacies of the ULF and ULIS and to develop a comprehensive body of rules that would be more acceptable.17 In 1978, UNCITRAL approved a new body of rules, the Draft Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, which effectively combined ULF and ULIS.18 The Draft Convention was the first draft of what would become the CISG.
Whether practitioners would like for the CISG to govern resolution of a dispute or would prefer to avoid it altogether, it is important to understand the circumstances under which the CISG applies to commercial sales contracts so that they can represent their clients accordingly.31 The application of the CISG to contracts entered into by parties from the United States occurs as a result of ratification and adoption of the CISG, which was signed on behalf of the United States at United Nations Headquarters on August 31, 1981 and went into effect in 1988.
Accordingly, the CISG will apply under Article 1(1)(a) to any contract for the sale of goods between a party from the United States and party from another Contracting State.
2. Rules of Private International Law Lead to the Law of a Contracting State The second situation arises when one or both parties do not reside in a Contracting State.
Thus, although the CISG strives to promote uniformity, the domestic laws of Contracting States still play a role and can lead to different results.
Unlike the U.C.C., which requires contracts for the sale of goods valued at five hundred dollars or more to be in writing, the CISG does not impose a writing requirement on parties to contracts for the sale of goods at any price. Instead, the existence and terms of a contract may be proved by any means, including testimony of witnesses or the conduct of the parties.
The U.C.C. also provides for a limited part performance exception to the statute of frauds. Under section 2-201, a contract for the sale of goods is enforceable to the extent that payment has been made or that goods have been received and accepted by the buyer.60 In some states, part performance and estoppel principles will remove an entire contract from the statute of frauds.61 In North Carolina, however, the protection afforded by the part performance doctrine is limited to the provisions of North Carolina General Statutes section 25-2-201(3)(c).
Another major difference between the CISG and the U.C.C. is that the CISG retains the common law “mirror image” and “last shot” rules with respect to contract formation. Although these rules still apply to contracts not governed by the U.C.C. in North Carolina, North Carolina General Statutes section 25-2-207 eliminates the “battle of the forms” and provides a different framework for determining the effect of additional or different terms in an acceptance.
Whether the CISG will better meet the needs of contracting parties than Article 2 of the U.C.C. depends on the nature of the parties and transaction involved. The two uniform laws were drafted with different types of parties in mind. The U.C.C. was intended to apply to all contracts for the sale of goods, including consumer sales, and its provisions are written to encompass a broad range of transactions.100 Parts of Article 2 are therefore necessarily protective to prevent consumers from being taken advantage of. In a number of sections, the U.C.C. makes a distinction between merchants and non-merchants and holds the latter to a higher standard than the former.101 Although consumerprotective provisions are important in domestic law, their inflexibility is not well-suited to international commercial sales.
The CISG, on the other hand, was drafted specifically for international commercial actors. Under Article 2(a), the CISG “does not apply to sales of goods bought for personal, family or household use, unless the seller, at any time before or at the conclusion of the contract, neither knew nor ought to have known that the goods were bought for any such use.”102 Leaving consumer protection in sales of goods transactions to domestic law,103 the CISG serves the interests of commercial actors by giving them the freedom to define their contract without fear that it will be invalidated for failing to comply with needlessly restrictive formalities.
The CISG’s flexibility is better suited to contracts in which the parties have selected arbitration instead of litigation as the method of dispute resolution. When dealing with the court system, parties often have little control over which judge will preside over their case. It is likely that a North Carolina superior court judge, or even a federal district court judge for that matter, would have little or no experience with the CISG.104 Subjecting a dispute to resolution before a judge who is unfamiliar with the governing substantive law and for which there is no North Carolina case precedent105 would almost certainly result in problems for everyone involved. However, by selecting arbitration as the method of dispute resolution, the parties can agree on a list of potential arbitrators who have the knowledge and experience necessary to correctly interpret and apply the CISG.
The CISG’s adherence to the “mirror image” and “last shot” rules is a better way to protect the expectations of contracting parties than the framework of North Carolina General Statutes section 25-2-207. The CISG’s principles regarding additional or different terms are preferable in two respects. First, the CISG makes it less likely for buyers and sellers to be contractually bound when the so-called “non-material” additional or different115 terms on the parties’ standard forms disagree. Second, the seller, who is typically the offeree in commercial sales transactions, is better protected by the CISG’s approach to different terms, under which the terms in the last form sent control.
Under the CISG, no contract is formed if an offeror objects to additional or different terms included in an acceptance that are deemed to be non-material.116 By contrast, under North Carolina General Statutes section 25-2-207, a contact between the parties will exist that consists of the writings upon which the parties agree, supplemented as necessary by the gap-filler provisions of the U.C.C.117 Even though the terms of the parties’ standard forms may be considered non-material relative to other provisions of the contract, they could be significant to the party who drafted them. While these terms may not be specifically negotiated in every transaction, it seems reasonable to conclude that they were made part of a party’s standard form because they were the terms on which that party wanted to transact business. By substituting the judgment of the tribunal for the judgment of the parties as to what terms are material, a party may end up bound to a contact containing terms to which it had not agreed or even contemplated.
Article 19 of the CISG, which treats an offeror’s objection to nonmaterial additional or different terms in an acceptance as a rejection, protects the parties from this undesirable outcome and better reflects the parties’ intent. Under Article 19, neither party is bound at the time of the offeror’s objection,118 but a contract could be created by the parties’ subsequent conduct.119 If, after receiving notice of the offeror’s objection, the offeree performs as requested by the offeror, it is reasonable to conclude at that point that the offeree intends to be bound despite the exclusion of the objectionable terms.
The minority approach to different terms in an acceptance adopted by North Carolina has been criticized by commentators.120 Although both the first-shot and last-shot rules arbitrarily determine which party’s terms should prevail, the last-shot rule is more in line with traditional contract formation principles and better approximates the parties’ intent. Generally, an acceptance must be a positive, unambiguous, and unequivocal manifestation of assent in order to be effective.121 An expression of acceptance containing terms different from those of the offer cannot be considered a manifestation of assent to be bound by the offer’s contradictory terms. Whatever else such an acceptance may be, it is clearly a rejection of those particular terms.
The last shot rule of Article 19 comes closer to reflecting the parties’ intent. Since an acceptance containing different terms rejects on its face the contradictory terms of the offer, the first-shot rule is not the best approach. The two alternative approaches are to “knock out” the different terms and allow the court to impose terms of the contract by resorting to the supplemental provisions of the U.C.C., or to apply the last-shot rule.122 By knocking out the different terms and supplementing the parties’ agreement in accordance with the U.C.C., it is possible that the contract will contain terms that neither party intended. If determining the parties’ intent is the interpretive goal, the better approach is found in Article 19 of the CISG. Under the last-shot approach of Article 19, the terms of the last form sent control if there is any disagreement.123 Logically, this makes sense. The idea is that by sending an acceptance containing different terms, the offeree has rejected the contradictory terms in the offer. If the offeror performs after receiving the acceptance, then it is fair to say that the offeror has assented to those terms. This places the burden on the offeror to read the acceptance form and object or decline to perform if he disagrees. Although this is not a perfect solution, it is more likely to result in an agreement that reflects the parties’ intent and appropriately places the burden on the offeror to be aware of the language of an acceptance.
The parol evidence rule is a function of the U.C.C.’s objective approach, and it seemingly values ease and consistency of application over the consideration of probative evidence of the parties’ agreement. Under North Carolina General Statutes section 25-2-202, if the parties’ confirmatory memorandum objectively appears to be a final and complete expression of their agreement, extrinsic evidence will be inadmissible to contradict the terms of their written agreement.126 This approach necessarily excludes relevant evidence of contractual terms and potentially obscures the parties’ actual intent.
Of course, any decision by a court or arbitral tribunal concerning the intent of contracting parties will have an objective component.127 It is impossible to know with certainty the parties’ subjective intent at the time of the conclusion of a contract, but considering “all relevant circumstances of the case”128 in order to make a determination is a better method of objectively evaluating their intent.
The CISG is not for everyone, but it may better suit the needs of parties to international sales contracts than North Carolina’s version of the U.C.C. Unlike the U.C.C., the CISG does not include a statute of frauds or the parol evidence rule. The CISG also rejects the approach of North Carolina General Statutes section 25-2-207 to additional or different terms in an acceptance and maintains the common law “mirror image” and “last shot” rules. Freedom of form and provisions that give priority to the parties’ actual intent allow buyers and sellers to conduct business without the unnecessary restrictions and delays caused by the formalities of domestic sales laws.
1. JOSEPH LOOKOFSKY, UNDERSTANDING THE CISG IN THE USA 6 (2d ed. 2004).
2. As used in this article, the term “states” is synonymous with countries.
Goods pmbl., Apr. 11, 1980, 1489 U.N.T.S. 3, S. TREATY DOC. NO. 98-9 (1986) [hereinafter CISG].
4. PETER SCHLECHTRIEM, UNIFORM SALES LAW—THE UN CONVENTION ON CONTRACTS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SALE OF GOODS 18 (1986), available at http://cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cisg/biblio/schlechtriem.html.
5. SCHLECHTRIEM, supra note 4, at 17-19.
6. See United Nations Comm. on Int’l Trade Law, Status: 1980 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (2007), http://www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/uncitral_texts/sale_goods1980CISG_status.html [hereinafter CISG Status].
7. See SCHLECHTRIEM, supra note 4, at 16.
8. Jacob S. Ziegel, The Future of the International Sales Convention from a Common Law Perspective, 6 N.Z. BUS. L.Q. 336, 336 (2000), available at http://cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cisg/biblio/ziegel3.html.
11. Peter Winship, The Scope of the Vienna Convention on International Sales Contracts, in INTERNATIONAL SALES: THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON CONTRACTS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SALE OF GOODS § 1.01 (Nina M. Galston & Hans Smit eds., 1984), available at http://cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cisg/biblio/winship5.html.
13. See generally Uniform Law on the International Sale of Goods, July 1, 1964, 3 I.L.M. 855, available at http://www.jus.uio.nolmunidroit.ulis.convention.1964/portrait.pdf.
14. See generally Uniform Law on the Formation of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, July 1, 1964, 3 I.L.M. 854, available at http://www.jus.uio.no/lm/unidroit.ulf.convention.1964/landscape.pdf.
15. See Winship, supra note 11, at § 1.01.
17. John Honnold, The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law: Mission and Methods, 27 AM. J. COMP. L. 201, 209 n.25 (1979).
19. See CISG, supra note 3, pmbl.
22. J¨urgen Basedow, Towards a Universal Doctrine of Breach of Contract: The Impact of the CISG, 25 INT’L R.L. ECON. 486, 487-88 (2005), available at http://cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cisg/biblio/basedow.html.
23. William Tetley, Mixed Jurisdictions: Common Law v. Civil Law (codified and uncodified), 60 LA. L. REV. 677, 718 (2000), available at http://www.cisg.law.pace.edu/cisg/biblio/tetley.html (quoting ROY GOODE, COMMERCIAL LAW 927 (2d ed., Penguin Books 1995)).
24. ROY GOODE, COMMERCIAL LAW 931-32 (2d ed., Penguin Books 1995).
Terminology, in FESTSCHRIFT F¨UR PETER SCHLECHTRIEM ZUM 70, 223, 226 (Ingeborg Schwenzer & G¨unter Hager eds., 2003), available at http://www.cisg.law.pace.edu/cisg/biblio/rogers2.html.
27 CISG, supra note 3, art. 4.
29. LOOKOFSKY, supra note 1, at 36 (footnote call numbers omitted).
30. Peter Schlechtriem, Requirements of Application and Sphere of Applicability of the CISG, 36 VICT. U. WELLINGTON L. REV. 781, 789-91 (2005).
31. In GPL Treatment v. Louisiana-Pacific Corp., counsel for the plaintiffs failed to recognize that the CISG applied to the parties’ contract, which would have made the statute of frauds defense raised by the defendant inapplicable. 894 P.2d 470, 477 n.4 (Or. Ct. App. 1995). See also William S. Dodge, Teaching the CISG in Contracts, 50 J. LEGAL EDUC. 72, 74 (March 2000) (noting that plaintiffs’ counsel gave up an argument that was “a sure winner”).
32. CISG, supra note 3, art. 1.
33. See CISG Status, supra note 6.
34. See CISG, supra note 3, art. 95.
35. Joseph Lookofsky, The 1980 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, in INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF LAWS—CONTRACTS 32 (J. Herbots ed., Supp. 29 2000), available at http://cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cisg/biblio/lookofsky.html.
Summary Records of the First Committee to the Plenary Conference, ¶¶ 78-98, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.97/11/Add.2, available at http://cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cisg/plenarycommittee/summary11.html.
39. See CISG Status, supra note 6.
40. See CISG, supra note 3, art. 95.
41. LOOKOFSKY, supra note 1, at 158-59.
42. As used in this article, the term “U.C.C.” means the Uniform Commercial Code version enacted in North Carolina, which is codified in Chapter 25 of the North Carolina General Statutes.
43. N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-201 (2007).
44. CISG, supra note 3, art. 11.
45. CISG AC Opinion no. 3, Parol Evidence Rule, Plain Meaning Rule, Contractual Merger Clause and the CISG, 23 October 2004.
46. See N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-202 (2007).
47 See CISG, supra note 3, art. 8(3).
48. See id., art. 19.
49. See N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-207 (2007).
50. Like most states, North Carolina has not enacted the 2006 amendments to Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Thus, the 2000 version of the U.C.C. is the most recent version to which Article 2 of Chapter 25 of the North Carolina General Statutes is comparable.
51. N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-201(1) (2007).
52. Contrast N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-201(1) (2007) with U.C.C. § 2-201(1) (2000).
53. Odom v. Clark, 60 S.E. 513, 515 (N.C. 1908).
56.. N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-201(3)(a) (2007).
57. The term “merchant” is defined by N.C. Gen. Stat. § 25-2-104 (2007) as “a person who deals in goods of the kind or otherwise by his occupation holds himself out as having knowledge or skill peculiar to the practices or goods involved in the transaction. . .” One who employs “an agent or broker or other intermediary who by his occupation holds himself out as having such knowledge or skill” may also be considered a merchant under this section.
58. N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-201(2) (2007).
61. See, e.g., Royster-Clark, Inc. v. Olsen’s Mill, Inc., 714 N.W.2d 530 (Wis. 2006); Metz Beverage Co. v. Wyoming Beverages, Inc., 39 P.3d 1051 (Wyo. 2002); Allied Grape Growers v. Bronco Wine Co., 249 Cal. Rptr. 872 (Cal. Ct. App. 5th 1988).
62. CISG, supra note 3, art. 11.
64. Id.; see also 1980 Vienna Diplomatic Conference, Vienna, Austria, Mar. 17, 1980, Summary Records of the First Committee, ¶¶ 9-66, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.97/5, available at http://cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cisg/firstcommittee/Meeting8.html.
65. The nine states that made an Article 96 reservation are Argentina, Belarus, Chile, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Paraguay, Russia, and Ukraine. See CISG Status, supra note 6.
67 “[North Carolina’s] traditional conflict of laws rule is that matters affecting the substantial rights of the parties are determined by lex loci, the law of the situs of the claim, and remedial or procedural rights are determined by lex fori, the law of the forum.” Stetser v. TAP Pharm. Prods. Inc., 598 S.E.2d 570, 580 (N.C. Ct. App. 2004) (quoting Boudreau v. Baughman, 368 S.E.2d 849, 853-54 (N.C. 1988)).
68. See CISG, supra note 3, art. 4; LOOKOFSKY, supra note 1, at 159-60.
69. See CISG Status, supra note 6.
70. See CISG, supra note 3, art. 1(1)(a). See, e.g., J.T. chuermans/Boomsma Distilleerderij, Hoge Raad der Nederlanden [HR] [Supreme Court of the Netherlands], 7 November 1997, 1998 NIPR 91 (Neth.) (holding that the no-writing-requirement principle of Article 11 applied to a contract between a buyer from Russia and a seller from the Netherlands where conflict-of-laws rules led to the law of the Netherlands—the CISG).
71. N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-207(1) (2007).
76. See § N.C. Gen. Stat. §25-2-206 (2007).
78. § 25-2-207 cmt. 5.
80. See § 25-2-207(2); U.C.C. § 2-207(2) (2000).
81. See Daitom, Inc. v. Pennwalt Corp., 741 F.2d 1569, 1579-80 (10th Cir. 1984) (discussing the three approaches to different terms under U.C.C. § 2-207).
82. See JOHN N. HUTSON, JR. & SCOTT A. MISKIMON, NORTH CAROLINA CONTRACT LAW § 7-5-3 (2007); Richard Hyland, Draft, 97 COLUM. L. REV. 1343, 1348 (1997).
83. See Magellan Intern. Corp. v. Salzgitter Handel GmbH, 76 F. Supp. 2d 919, 925 (N.D. Ill. 1999).
84. CISG, supra note 3, art. 19(1).
85. United Nations Conference on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, Commentary on the Draft Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods prepared by the Secretariat, art. 17 ¶ 2, UN Doc. A/CONF. 97/5 (1979) [hereinafter Secretariat Commentary].
86. Examples of material terms are provided in Article 19(3) and include “price, payment, quality and quantity of the goods, place and time of delivery, extent of one party’s liability to the other or the settlement of disputes.” CISG, supra note 3, art. 19(3).
87. CISG, supra note 3, art. 19(2).
89. See Secretariat Commentary, supra note 85, art. 17 ¶ 10.
91. N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-202 (2007).
92. CISG-AC Opinion no. 3, Parol Evidence Rule, Plain Meaning Rule, Contractual Merger Clause and the CISG, ¶ 1, 23 October 2004 [hereinafter CISG-AC Opinion no.3]. See also MCC-Marble Ceramic Ctr., Inc. v. Ceramica Nuova D’Agostino, S.P.A., 144 F.3d 1384, 1386-90 (11th Cir. 1998) (interpreting Article 8 of the CISG as a rejection of the parol evidence rule).
93. See N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-202.
94. § 25-2-202(a) (internal citations omitted).
96. CISG, supra note 3, art. 8(1).
97. CISG-AC Opinion no. 3, supra note 92, ¶ 1.
98. CISG, supra note 3, art 8(3).
99. CISG-AC Opinion no. 3, supra note 92, cmt. 2.2.
100. See CHRISTIAN TWIGG-FLESNER, CONSUMER PRODUCT GUARANTEES 92 n.3 (2003) (“Article 2 of the U.C.C. deals with all types of sales and therefore has to be sufficiently broad to cover the smallest of consumer sales as well as the large-scale inter-state transactions.”).
101. See, e.g., N.C. GEN. STAT. §§ 2-201(2), 2-205, 2-207(2), 2-209(2), 2-312(3), 2-314, 2-327(1)(C), 2-402(2) (2007).
102. CISG, supra note 3, art. 2(a).
103. SCHLECHTRIEM, supra note 4, at 31-32 (discussing deference to domestic law with regard to consumer protection laws affecting validity of a contract pursuant to Article 4).
104. See Dodge, supra note 31.
105. A LexisNexis search of North Carolina state and federal cases for the term “CISG” returned only one case— an unpublished decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in which the court notes, “Case law interpreting the CISG is rather sparse.” Schmitz-Werke GmbH & Co. v. Rockland Indus., Inc., No. 00-1125, 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 12336, at *8 (4th Cir. June 21, 2002).
106. See discussion supra Part II.
107. It is not enough to simply specify “the laws of the State of North Carolina” as the governing substantive law. See Asante Techs. v. PMC-Sierra, Inc., 164 F. Supp. 2d 1142, 1149-50 (N.D. Cal. 2001).
108. See discussion infra Part I.B.
109. See Bruno Zeller, The Parol Evidence Rule and the CISG— a Comparative Analysis, 73 COMP. & INT’L L.J.S. AFR. 308 (2003), available at http://cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cisg/biblio/zeller6.html (noting the cultural differences in views on writing requirements for enforceability).
modifications, they can do so by including a no-oral-modification clause in their agreement. See CISG, supra note 3, arts. 6, 29.
111. See N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-201 (2007).
112. See, e.g., Neugent v. Beroth Oil Co., 560 S.E.2d 829 (N.C. Ct. App. 2002).
113. See, e.g., Lowe’s Cos. v. Lipe, 201 S.E.2d 81 (N.C. Ct. App. 1973).
114. See, e.g., GPL Treatment, 894 P.2d at 477 n.4.
115. With regard to different terms, Professor Farnsworth remarked, “It is difficult to imagine variations that would not be material.” E. Allan Farnsworth, Formation of Contract, in INTERNATIONAL SALES: THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON CONTRACTS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SALE OF GOODS § 3.04 (Nina M. Galston & Hans Smit eds, 1984).
116. See CISG, supra note 3, art. 19; Secretariat Commentary, supra note 85, art. 17 ¶ 10.
117. See N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-207 (2007).
118. See Secretariat Commentary, supra note 85, art. 17 ¶ 10.
119. See CISG, supra note 3, art. 18(3).
120. See Franklin G. Snyder, Clouds of Mystery: Dispelling the Realist Rhetoric of the Uniform Commercial Code, 68 OHIO ST. L.J. 11 (2007); Corneill A. Stephens, Escape from the Battle of the Forms: Keep it Simple, Stupid, 11 LEWIS & CLARK L. REV. 233 (2007).
121. 2 SAMUEL WILLISTON & RICHARD A. LORD, A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF CONTRACTS § 6:10 (4th ed. 1993).
122. See Daitom, Inc. v. Pennwalt Corp., 741 F.2d 1569, 1579-80 (1984).
123. See CISG, supra note 3, art. 19.
124. See CISG, supra note 3, arts. 8(1), (3).
125. John E. Murray, Jr., An Essay on the Formation of Contracts and Related Matters under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, 8 J.L. & COM. 11, 46-47 (1988).
126. See N.C. GEN. STAT. § 25-2-202 (2007).
127. See JOHN O. HONNOLD, UNIFORM LAW FOR INTERNATIONAL SALES UNDER THE 1980 UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION 116 (3d ed. 1999) (noting the problems of a purely subjective approach).
128. CISG, supra note 3, art. 8(3).

References: § 1
 § 1
 v. 
 art. 4
 v. 
 art. 1
 art. 95
 art. 95
 § 25
 art. 11
 § 25
 art. 8
 art. 19
 § 25
 § 25
 § 25
 § 2
 v. 
 § 25
 § 25
 § 25
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 art. 11
 v. 
 v. 
 art. 4
 art. 1
 § 25
 §25
 § 25
 § 25
 § 2
 v. 
 § 2
 § 7
 v. 
 art. 19
 art. 17
 art. 19
 art. 19
 art. 17
 § 25
 v. 
 § 25
 § 25
 art. 8
 art 8
 art. 2
 v. 
 v. 
 § 25
 v. 
 v. 
 § 3
 art. 19
 art. 17
 § 25
 art. 17
 art. 18
 § 6
 v. 
 art. 19
 § 25
 art. 8