Hardly Room for Hardship - A Functional Review of Article 79 of the CISG

Abstract

Over a decade ago, Francesco Mazzotta penned a penetrating article on the issue of determination of interest rate under Article 78 of the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), which pierced academic discussions at the time, and won a much deserved Schmitthoff research award. It was appropriately entitled: "CISG Article 78: Endless disagreement among commentators, much less among the courts." After finding a similar phenomenon of "much ado about nothing," in relation to the application of Article 79 and the issue of hardship, the authors were inspired to undertake a similar debunking of a similar myth, in Mazzotta's vein. We hope it may inspire others to pursue pragmatic and empirical research issues.