Article by Michael Joachim Bonell
It is no exaggeration to speak of the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, published in June 1994, as constituting a totally new approach to international trade law. In fact, they do not fit into any of the traditional categories of legal instruments that have up to now been prepared on an international level. They are neither model clauses, such as the Model Clause on Force Majeure of the International Chamber of Commerce, nor contract forms, such as those issued by the Grain and Feed Trade Association, intended as they are to cover the whole area of contract law without being conceived in terms of specific types of transactions. Nor are the UNIDROIT Principles cast in the form of an international convention or uniform law: they do not have any binding force as such and will be applied in practice by reason of their persuasive value only.
What then are the UNIDROIT Principles? And why did an intergovernmental agency such as the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law embark upon a project of this kind? Finally, how can the UNIDROIT Principles be expected to achieve their intended purposes? This Article will seek to answer these three questions.
About the Author
Michael Joachim Bonell. Professor of Law, University of Rome I “La Sapienza”; Legal Consultant, UNIDROIT; Chairman of the Working Group for the preparation of the UNIDROIT Principles.
Citation
69 Tul. L. Rev. 1121 (1995)