Hong Kong has recently ratified the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (“CISG”). While Article 7(2) of the CISG acknowledges the potential incompleteness of the convention in addressing all issues it aims to govern and emphasizes the preference for seeking general principles within the CISG before resorting to domestic private international law, the extent of this preference remains unclear. This article highlights that while some scholars argue for private international law as a last resort, it is erroneous to suggest that the general principles embodied in the convention also include those exclusively stem from other international conventions. Such an approach would disregard the inherent international nature and proportionality envisioned by Article 7(1) of the CISG.

The discussion on Taiwan's status under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) has picked up steam. After providing some historical background, it is argued that neither doctrinal nor policy arguments can support the application of the Convention to Taiwanese parties. Drawing on case law in the context of other uniform law treaties, the article concludes that the approbation of the CISG by the People's Republic of China should not bind Taiwan and that, as a consequence, Taiwanese parties should be treated as parties from non-Contracting States.

The United Kingdom remains one of the world's last industrialized nations not to have adopted the CISG. The UK CISG debate has endured for decades, with existing analysis largely focusing on competition, assessing the relative merits of the CISG and English law. This article's analysis is complementary; focusing instead on coherence, and the private international law implications of UK accession. This article assesses contractual interpretation, and commodity sales, within an overarching private international law framework. Recognizing the necessity of existing competitive analyses, it makes the case for UK CISG accession on the basis of its complementary coherency perspective.