Abstract:
This paper explores the evolution of the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of
Goods (referred to throughout the text as the "CISG" or the "Convention") jurisprudence through the Willem C Vis Moot ("Vis Moot") casebook. It analyses the CISG issues raised and explored in the seventeen years of the Willem C Vis Moot and draws out notable trends and key themes. Upon the analysis of the trends and themes which have arisen over the past seventeen years, the dissertation discusses how the Vis Moot problems, as well as the winning memoranda, reflect and encapsulate the evolution and developments in the worldwide application and interpretation of the CISG in those areas. The analysis of the Vis Moot problems is thus used as a tool to consider the worldwide jurisprudential developments on the CISG over the past two decades, and identify both those aspects of the Convention that have benefited from considerable analysis, and where comprehensive jurisprudence has already developed, as well as the "gap" areas where further work is required in order to ensure the CISG evolves alongside technological, social,
political and legal developments affecting international sale of goods contracts. The dissertation concludes by drawing out the notable trends illustrated by, and set against the backdrop of, the Vis Moot casebook, and the consequent implications of such trends on the current state ofCISG jurisprudence. In particular, these trends and outcomes are assessed as against the overall spirit of the Convention and its goal of achieving, or seeking to achieve, uniform application of rules
on international sale of goods contracts. This assessment seeks to capture how this goal of
uniformity has been achieved to-date, and where the upcoming challenges may lie in the coming
years. Finally, the paper considers the overall importance and impact of the Vis Moot, as an
annual global event with manifold benefits, on the interpretation, promotion and development of
the CISG.
