1.2 OVERVIEW OF THE STUDIED INSTRUMENTS
　
　1.2.1 CISG
　
　In April, 1964, twenty-eight states approved two conventions which were the Uniform Law on the International Sale of Goods (ULIS) and the Uniform Law on the Formation of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (ULF) referred to collectively as the 1964 Hague Conventions, which were not very successful.
　　　　 The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), which is the core legal body within the UN system in the field of international trade law and was tasked by the UN General Assembly to further the progressive harmonization and unification of the law of international trade, set out to study the 1964 Hague Conventions to improve and reform them hopefully ending up with a product more successful than the first. Finally, after several drafts after the realization that an entirely new text was needed, the General Assembly convened a conference on a product that is today the CISG.
　
　As suggested by the legislative history, consideration of each individual article of the CISG proceeded on the basis of compromise. For this reason, there was a conscious desire to restrict the content of the CISG to those areas on which it was possible to agree.
　　　　 As a result, certain kinds of sales were excluded according to Art. 2 and matters such as the validity of the contract and the passing of property (Art. 4), the liability of the seller for death or personal injury caused by the goods to any person (Art. 5) were not included. In addition, there was a deliberate attempt not to rely on existing legal definitions which could then be subject to contradicting interpretations in different member states. The aim was not to take the best from every jurisdiction, but to develop an empirical code which, where possible, used independent terms to convey its meaning. Indeed, no international commercial legal regime can expect to be perfect, especially when it is developed on the basis of compromise between legal systems.
　
　While the drafters of the CISG represented various legal systems that possessed their own unique methods of solving certain problems, a commonality existed among the majority of the drafters. So while the remedies provided for by the CISG might not represent part of the "consistent and universal form of international mercantile law" desired by a modern lex mercatoria, they do represent a step forward in that process. From the point of view of legislation as well as from the point of view of practical application, the Convention seems to be a success. Moreover, this success may fuel further uniformity as it is already influencing other fields of international trade law. Indeed, after it came into force on January 1, 1988, the CISG has gained tremendous political and economic significance as the uniform sales law for sixty-two countries that account for two-thirds of all world trade.
　　　　
　
　As for the application issue, the CISG is the domestic law of each Contracting State. Important conclusions and recommendations follow from this: For parties with their relevant places of business in different Contracting States, where their contract falls within the scope of the CISG, the contract is automatically governed by the CISG, unless the parties indicate otherwise. In other words, where without reference to the CISG, the parties state that the contract is governed by the law of a Contracting State or the applicable law so holds, the contract is likely to be governed by the CISG. For parties to such international sales transactions who do not wish to have them governed by the CISG, the recommended procedure is to so state in their contracts. The above conclusion and recommendation can also apply when only one of the parties has his relevant place of business in a Contracting State of the applicable domestic law regards the law of that Contracting State as the governing law. In these two situations -- contracting parties from different Contracting States, and a contract between a party from a Contracting State and a party from a non-Contracting State -- the relevant CISG provisions are Arts. 1(1) and 95. On the other hand, there are also cases in which principles of the CISG can apply to transactions between parties neither of whom has his relevant place of business in a Contracting State. The CISG can apply to such a contract solely by the election of the parties.

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