COVID-19 in the Context of the CISG: Reconsidering the Concept of Hardship and Force Majeure

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused difficulties and created disruptions to human lives worldwide, including commercial lives. It is not surprising that parties to international sales transactions agreed upon according to the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) will try to invoke the exception in Article 79 to exempt their liability for damages. However, this article argues that Article 79 is hard to apply in practice and is almost not available to the contracting parties. To do so, it examines Article 79 and moves on to attempt to apply it to various difficulties the contracting parties are likely to face in this time of global pandemic. Finally, this article argues that the best way for the contracting parties to protect themselves is to resort to the use of appropriate force majeure or hardship clauses.