A Practical Guide to the CISG: Negotiations Through Litigation.

• Author: Mullins, Edward M.
• Position: Book review

A Practical Guide to the CISG: Negotiations Through Litigation. By A.E. Butler

When a practitioner first encounters the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods ("the CISG"), he or she quickly will realize that there is a paucity of American treatises on the topic. While Pace University has a comprehensive Web site on the CISG, with a country-by-country listing of decisions and scholarship, that Web site, as with most Web sites providing such content, can be daunting.

Many of us do not even know what the CISG is, let alone when it applies to a particular contract. (For the record, the CISG is an international "gap filler" treaty that provides for terms in international sales contracts, similar to the Chapter 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code).

Enter A.E. Butler, an in-house counsel for several corporations, who came to the realization years ago that practitioners needed a practical, easy-to-use volume on the CISG. The result is an extremely comprehensive, loose-leaf volume on the topic, A Practical Guide to the CISG: Negotiations Through Litigation, which is a must-own for any lawyer who encounters or may encounter CISG issues.

Butler's treatise, just published by Aspen Publishers, is an exhaustively researched volume. As the name suggests, it takes a practical approach to this complex area of the law. For example, Butler has provided easy-to-use forms section in her volume, including sample complaints, a sample contract governed by the CISG, and sample notices. Each chapter includes helpful "Practical Application" explanations throughout. Of course, she provides the text of the Convention itself.

Butler does take time, however, to indulge in some historical perspective. Recognizing that the approaches taken by the various countries' courts to the CISG is dictated by their past, Butler has provided a brief history of commercial commerce from both Eastern and Western perspectives.

The real benefits of Butler's book, though, and what distinguishes it from other material such as the Pace Web site, are the clear chapters on the application of the CISG, especially helpful for the newcomer.

After explaining the basic mechanics of the CISGs operation and when it applies, Butler provides separate chapters on the fundamentals: contract formation, performance obligations under the CISG, risk allocation, buyer's remedies, seller's remedies, and damages and defenses issues.

Each chapter is heavily footnoted with...