Exclusion of international laws

[Chloe Hoffman]

This is not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is established. 
etc etc

>From: Abe Kornelis <abe at bixoft.nl>
>Reply-To: abe at bixoft.nl
>To: license-discuss at opensource.org
>Subject: Exclusion of international laws
>Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2002 22:02:29 -0800
>
>Hello all,
>
>Best wishes for the new year to all of you.
>
>I have noticed that various OSI-approved licenses
>exclude the United Nations Convention on Contracts
>for the International Sale of Goods.
>
>First question: why would anyone want to exclude
>a supranational regulation. I'd suppose such
>regulations are installed in order to promote
>international trade...
>

A contracting party would want to exclude the UN CISG primarily where it 
prefers a different law. For example, where a party prefers the law of New 
York with respect to all its transactions, domestic or international, it 
would want to exclude the UN CISG from applying to its international 
contracts - a uniformity reason. A party may want to have a law it knows 
apply instead of assume the interpretation of the UN CISG - a certainty 
reason. A party may disagree with the provisions of the UN CISG - a 
substantive reason. Of course, there could me many more reasons. You can 
read the UN CISG here:
http://www.uncitral.org/english/texts/sales/CISG.htm

>Second question: Once this Convention has been
>ratified by a country's government I'd assume it
>has status of law within that country. Is it
>legally possible then, to bypass such a regulation?
>I mean, I could write that applciation of regulations
>relating to racism are excluded from my license X,
>but I seriously doubt that such a statement would
>have any consequence: it would simply be overridden
>by 'the law'. Anybody willing to shed some light
>on these - to me - murky matters?
>

The UN CISG expressly permits "parties", i.e. parties to a contract as 
distinct from the "States" who ratify the CISG, to exclude its application.

Article 6

The parties may exclude the application of this Convention or, subject to 
article 12, derogate from or vary the effect of any of its provisions.

http://www.uncitral.org/english/texts/sales/CISG.htm


>Thanks in advance, and kind regards, Abe.
>--
>Abe F. Kornelis, B.V. Bixoft
>Het Jaagpad 63, 3461 HA Linschoten
>The Netherlands
>phone: +31-6-22755401
>
>To visit our website:
>either: http://www.bixoft.com
>     or: http://www.bixoft.nl
>
>--
>license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3


_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.

--
license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3