Harmonization of Contract Law in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia: What Can Be Learned from the CISG and the ECL Experience?

This paper examines the pending initiative for harmonization of contract law in Eastern and South-Eastern Asian jurisdictions from the perspectives of the European Contract Law (ECL) and the Vienna Convention on International Sale of Goods (CISG). The idea behind the paper is that experiences, both positive and negative ones, gained from these two examples of harmonization of contract law may be very beneficial for the Asian initiative. Learning about the ECL and the CISG enables a better and more complete understanding of the contract law harmonization process. In particular, the analysis of these two examples show all the different problems, challenges and issues that harmonization of contract law brings which need always to be taken into consideration and the necessary conditions which need to be fulfilled in order to achieve a high level of harmonization in reality. Finally, this paper comes up with some of the suggestions that should be taken into consideration by the relevant stakeholders while discussing on how to proceed further with the harmonization of contract law in Asia.