Creative Commons

This dissertation was written as part of the LLM in Transnational and European Commercial Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution at the International Hellenic University. I decided to write my dissertation on this topic because International Commercial Arbitration is considered to be a very significant and fascinating part of the legal world and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (Vienna, 1980) (CISG) is undoubtedly among the most important international treaties forming the unified lex mercatoria of our time. This dissertation contemplates with some very critical issues of the Vienna Convention in combination with International Commercial Arbitration. First of all, there is a presentation of the CISG as an International Treaty and Arbitration as an Alternative Resolution Mechanism, including their history, aims, and evolution since today. Afterwards, there is a discussion about how they function together towards promoting the uniformity of international trade. Further, this dissertation examines a number of issues such as the differences between the application of the Vienna Convention by a national court or by an arbitral tribunal, how arbitrators decide to apply the Convention, the Interpretation and the Gap filling process of the Convention and last, but not least, the Convention’s interface with national mandatory rules as far as it concerns their application on the merits of the dispute.