Professor Franco Ferrari, the Center’s Director, has just published an article in Diritto del commercio internazionale, a peer reviewed Italian law journal. In his article, Professor Ferrari, one of the leading academics in the field of unification of law in general, and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) in particular, argues that in the arbitration context, uniform substantive law conventions apply for reasons that do not compare to those that lead to their application in litigation. In arbitration, their application will depend on the autonomous arbitration-specific conflict of laws rules. If these rules designate the law of a contracting State as the law applicable, the uniform substantive law conventions apply as part of the law of that State. But the conventions may also apply on their own, independently of the law of any contracting State, if the applicable arbitration-specific conflict of laws rule allows for the application of “rules of law”.
