The UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (PICC)
“The UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (PICC) were aimed at creating a valid “substantive law” alternative in cross-border commerce to the traditional State-law centred conflict-of-laws approach, which simply identifies a national law of a particular country to govern international contracts and disputes. However, their relevance in this respect is still very limited. On the other hand, the PICC seem to have played a more substantial role as a “global background law”, especially when they are used to interpret or supplement the domestic law or international uniform law instruments, such as the Vienna International Sales Convention or CISG.”
Critically discuss to what extent you agree with the statement above, ensuring that you draw on a wide range of primary and secondary legal materials to support your claims.
Sample Solution
The UNIDROIT Principles provide a balanced set of rules covering virtually all the most important topics of general contract law, such as formation, interpretation, validity including illegality, performance, non-performance and remedies, assignment, set-off, plurality of obligors and of obliges, as well as the authority of agents and limitation periods. Moreover, and even more important, the UNIDROIT Principles, prepared by a group of experts representing all the major legal systems of the world and available in virtually all the major international languages, are designed for use throughout the world irrespective of the legal traditions and the economic and political conditions of the countries in which they are to be applied.
