Hardship in the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods- a Comparative Study on the New Interpretations

There is no agreement amongst lawyers in different legal systems on whether hardship is accepted in the convention on contracts for the international sale of goods, particularly article 79 of the convention. A comparative study on the opinions of the commentators of the convention shows that the Silence of the convention can be interpreted as an "external gap", "intended omission", or "internal gap. Most of the age-old interpretations have been confined to this short explanation that the convention does not have any explicit provision as to the hardship. The conclusion of the research: in the recent opinions which are based on the purpose of the convention, presented by its commentators, the convention has "internal gap" regarding different situations of hardship. To fill this gap the fundamental principles of the convention (such as good faith, reasonableness, cooperate, favour contractus, and …) shall be applied. Based on these principles, the right to request for renegotiation or adaptation of the contract can be recognized for the obligor in cases where an unexpected increase in the costs or a decrease in profitability of the performance of the contract occurs after the conclusion of the contract.