Study On The Application Of CISG In Hong Kong

The application of United Nations Convention on Contracts for International Sale ofGoods (CISG) in Hong Kong is not very clear. In International jurisdiction practice, somecountries acknowledged the application of the CISG in Hong Kong, while other countriesdenied it. There are tremendous number of cases which related to the application of the CISGin Hong Kong, the most typical two are the American CNA Co. V.S. Kelong international caseand the French Telecommunication Products case. According to the reasons of the two cases,we can see two different attitudes——the American court support the application of theCISG in Hong Kong, while the French court takes the opposite stand.As a matter of fact, it has been a long-standing problem caused by history. Before1997,since the UK was not a contracting member of the CISG, the convention is not applied toHong Kong then. After Hong Kong’s hand-over, the People’s Republic of China also did notclarify if the convention was applied to Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR). So,the status of Hong Kong under CISG was unclear, which results in different attitudes towardsthe problem of whether the CISG should be applied in Hong Kong SAR in internationaljurisdiction practice.The problem of Whether the CISG can be applied in Hong Kong arouses fierce debating,but the author believes that the CISG can be applied in Hong Kong based on the followingreasons: first, Hong Kong is an inseparable part of China, and China’s sovereign rights overHong Kong is unarguable; second, the situation of Hong Kong is perfectly accord with thedescription of the article93paragraph1. Besides, the requirements of the article93paragraph1aims at the circumstance when a country is not willing to apply CISG to all parts of itssovereignty. Since our country never made any declarations and Hong Kong is a part of ourcountry according to the CISG, the CISG surely can be applied in Hong Kong.There will be two main problems on the way of the application of the CISG in HongKong. One is the approach of the application of the CISG, the other one is the effect of thepreservation of the CISG in Hong Kong. The application of the CISG in Hong Kong can onlybe carried on in the indirect way. The preservation of the CISG, considering the threeprinciples of transition period before the handover, the two preservations can be not applied inHong Kong area.