The parties’ choice of the Common European Sales Law – which governing law?

In this paper Maren Heidemann (Lecturer in Commercial Law, University of Glasgow) seeks answers and suggests solutions, especially in respect of the lex contractus status of a potential sales law instrument. It looks at the possibilities of an express choice of the Council on a Common European Sales Law by the parties to a potential contract employing the CESL. The first part of the paper (A-C) briefly sets out the proposed structure and content of the CESL in order to provide a basis for an analysis and recommendation in the second part (D-F). The aim of this research is to suggest a consistent solution to the problems arising on the one hand from the (widely detected) defective drafting of this proposal, as well as from the underlying status quo of current European private international law doctrines relating to lex contractus, both on an EU level and within the national laws.