Research On The Passing Of Risk Under Breach In International Sales Of Goods

There are three different principles of the passing of risk: the contract established principle (the risk passes when the contract is established); the ownership principle (the risk passes with the ownership) and the delivery principle (the risk passes when the goods are delivered). Among these, the delivery principle is adopted by most countries in the world.According to the delivery principle, where the two parties do not breach the contract, the risk passes when the goods are delivered. That is to say, the seller must bear the risk before the delivery of the goods. After the delivery, the risk is transferred from the seller to the buyer. However, where the loss or damage occurred at the time when the two parties or one of them breaches the contract, if the risk is still transferred to the buyer when the goods delivered, it may be unfair to the buyer. As a result, the related convention and national legislation have some exception laws about this issue.There are four parts in this thesis. First part makes a distinction between the risk burden and the liability for breach of contract. And the preliminary view of the relationship between breach of contract and risk is advanced. The second part is about the appropriation as it is the prerequisite of the risk transfer especially under breach of contract. The third part will compare the typical legislation and conventions, such as "Uniform Commercial Code"(UCC), "UK Sale of Goods Act 1979", "German Code of Civil Law", "United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods"(CISG), etc. Based on the comparison above, the last part will put forward the author's views towards the problems in Contract Law of PRC. And several suggestions on improving our Contract Law in the aspect of the passing of risk under breach of contract are brought forward.