The Principles of International Commercial Contracts 2016 (most frequently referred to as UNIDROIT Principles and often also referred to as PICC) is a set of 211 rules for international contracts. They have been drawn up since 1984 by an international working group of the inter-governmental organization
UNIDROIT, and they were ratified by its Council representing 64 governments of member states.
As
soft law
The term ''soft law'' refers to quasi-legal instruments (like recommendations or guidelines) which do not have any legally binding force, or whose binding force is somewhat weaker than the binding force of traditional law. Soft law is often contras ...
, these principles help harmonize international commercial contract law by providing rules supplementing international instruments like the
CISG
The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), sometimes known as the Vienna Convention, is a multilateral treaty that establishes a uniform framework for international commerce.Not to be confused with ot ...
and even national laws. Most importantly in private practice, they offer a neutral contractual regime which the parties can choose, either by incorporation into their contracts (in whole or in parts), or by a straightforward choice of the UNIDROIT Principles (e.g. “This contract is governed by the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts 2016”; in practice such a clause is often combined with an arbitration clause).
The UNIDROIT Principles were first released in 1994, with enlarged editions published in 2004, 2010, and most recently in 2016 (including issues related to long-term contracts). Established with an international mind-set, they address many issues on which national legislators do not concentrate, such as foreign-currency set-off or hardship. Practitioners who use the principles describe them as a state-of-the art tool which is particularly useful when parties from different legal systems desire to agree on a neutral contractual regime. International law firm networks have an increasing number of committees concentrating on promoting the use of the UNIDROIT Principles in practice (e.g. the
International Bar Association
The International Bar Association (IBA), founded in 1947, is a bar association of international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies. The IBA currently has a membership of more than 80,000 individual lawyers and 190 bar associat ...
Primerus Society of Law Firms.
Contents
*Preamble
*Chapter 1, General Provisions
*Chapter 2, Formation and Authority of Agents
*Chapter 3, Validity
*Chapter 4, Interpretation
*Chapter 5, Content and Third Party Rights
*Chapter 6, Performance
*Chapter 7, Non-Performance
*Chapter 8, Set-off
*Chapter 9, Assignment of rights, transfer of obligations, assignment of contracts
*Chapter 10, Limitation periods
*Chapter 11, Plurality of partie
See also
*
Australian contract law
*
Canadian contract law
*
English contract law
English contract law is the body of law that regulates legally binding agreements in England and Wales. With its roots in the lex mercatoria and the activism of the judiciary during the industrial revolution, it shares a heritage with countries ...
*
French contract law
*
German contract law German contract law is found in the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, in both the "Allgemeine Teil" and the chapter on "Schuldrecht". It forms part of the general law of obligations.
See also
*Abstraktionsprinzip
*Drittwirkung
Contract
A contract i ...
*
Principles of European Contract Law
The ''Principles of European Contract Law'' (PECL) is a set of model rules drawn up by leading contract law academics in Europe. It attempts to elucidate basic rules of contract law and more generally the law of obligations which most legal syste ...
of 2003
*
Restatement (Second) of Contracts of 1979
*
UK commercial law
United Kingdom commercial law is the law which regulates the sale and purchase of goods and services, when doing business in the United Kingdom.
History
*Lex Mercatoria
* Hanseatic league
* Guild
* Mercantilism
* Freedom of contract
*'' Laissez ...
*
Unidroit
*
Uniform Commercial Code
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), first published in 1952, is one of a number of Uniform Acts that have been established as law with the goal of harmonizing the laws of sales and other commercial transactions across the United States through U ...
of 1952
*
US contract law
References
*Brödermann, Eckart J., UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts: An Article-by-Article Commentary. Nomos (Germany) and Wolters Kluwer (Netherlands), 433 p., 2018 (reviewed e.g. by in Singapore by Michael Patchett-Joyce https://lawgazette.com.sg/lifestyle/book-shelf/unidroit-principles/; in Brazil by Lauro Gama, RBA 2019, 222-225; in the UK by Klaus-Peter Berger, Arbitration International 2018, 1-3; in New Zealand by Petra Butler, (2018) 49 VUWLR 409-412).
*S. Vogenauer and J. Kleinheisterkamp, ''Commentary on the UNIDROIT principles of international commercial contracts (PICC)'' (OUP 2009)
*S. Vogenauer, ''Commentary on the UNIDROIT principles of international commercial contracts (PICC)'' (Oxford: OUP, 2nd edn 2015)
[{{Cite web, url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/commentary-on-the-unidroit-principles-of-international-commercial-contracts-picc-9780198702627?cc=us&lang=en&#, title=Oxford University Press, last=, first=, date=, website=, publisher=OUP, access-date=9 April 2016]
External links
Unidroit's page for the PICC*
Unidroit Principles of International Commercial Contracts of 2016
An Overview of the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts
Contract law
UNIDROIT